Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Gaily Donating Blood?

We're living in enlightened times. Where formerly and up to the present gays have not and are not permitted to donate blood to Canadian Blood Services because of the risk of transmitting the HIV-AIDS virus, that antediluvian attitude may soon change. Should it?

We're living in an entirely changed society. One that accepts without question, the right of gays to live their lives without hindrance or criticism as is their human right. And as is guaranteed under Canadian law. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives them the recognition and the protection they deserve, as citizens of the country.

Physicians, student groups and gay rights' activists have lobbied and protested the policy that excludes men who have had sex with other men from donating blood. Unfair, the work of an oppressive society, not a free one like Canada. Offensive to the sensibilities of the gay demographic that they are singled out and denied that privilege.

That they may be carriers of HIV-AIDS, or other sexually-transmitted disease as a result of their alter-sex lives was, of course, the reason. To protect the general public from the possibility of being infected with a virus or a disease they had no wish to acquire. Understandably.

But a lawyer who represents the Canadian AIDS Society claims that screening tests for HIV/AIDS have improved over the years. "The challenge is making change palatable to various stakeholders, including Health Canada, the government and the people of Canada", he explained.

The reason Canadian Blood Services banned donations from gay men was that statistics held that they are at greater risk for HIV/AIDS infection. Logical and reasonable. Britain is leading the way evidently, changing its own long-held policy to allow men to donate if they haven't had sex with another man for a year.

The general public is fairly well accepting of gay rights. Seems gay activists are not equally tolerant of the right of the general public to be protected from the potential of contracting a dread disease. In constantly insisting on their rights they make little of the rights of the majority.

Whereas the gay community insists its minority rights are being abrogated by not being allowed to give blood, an act of civil altruism, the public's majority rights are being dismissed by virtue of the sense of goodwill extended to the gay community.

Where there is even a remote possibility that a gay man might wish to donate blood regardless of eligibility restraints, Health Canada and the Government of Canada should sit tight and insist on the status quo.

It's their hurt feelings of being rejected versus the other, larger group's assurances of blood-quality safety. No contest. It would be refreshing to see the gay community behave like responsible members of society, far less than the spoiled-brat-syndrome we're incessantly exposed to.

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