On Blood Equality
By AdministratorToday is the WHO's World Blood Donor Day. This day also coincides with Pride Month and follows some compelling concerns raised from our BBN community recently about blood law, which we feel compelled to address.
For over three decades, HIV/AIDS fears fueled a U.S. ban on all donated blood from gay and bisexual men. While this ban was technically reversed two years ago, a de-facto lifetime ban has taken its place: men must not engage in sexual activity with another man for one year preceding the donation. Under this rule, a man may not even donate blood to his own lawful husband.
Over 615,000 pints of blood—enough to help save an estimated 1.8 million lives—are turned away due to this practice.
Many argue this law is based on stigma rather than sound science. (Consider that non-males who have sex with men are still permitted under FDA policy to donate blood, even if they just had sex with someone of unknown HIV status.)
As secular humanists, we are concerned with humanitarian public policy guided by scientific evidence. We are also concerned with using reason and compassion to covercome stigma, like that which baselessly connects men who have sex with men ("MSMs") with disease and deviancy.
We agree with members of our community that the MSM waiting period law reinforces—and may be perpetuated by—such dangerous stereotypes. We also agree that this policy bolsters a dangerous fallacy that heterosexuals—even those who participate in high-risk behavior—are safer and more highly preferred blood donors.
Blood is said to be needed every two seconds, and less than 40% of the population is eligible under these laws to donate it. We do not by any means advocate for blood boycotts or wish to discourage our community in any way from donating blood. However, we wish to raise awareness of this issue today and encourage our supporters to work toward changing it. You'll be hearing more from us about this soon. Please stay tuned.
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