According to The Las Vegas Sun,
Two student legislators at Western Oregon University have launched a drive to ban Red Cross blood drives on campus, claiming the donor screening process discriminates against gays.
The two students are particularly upset about a donor question that reads: “Are you a male who has had sex with another male since 1977, even once?”
The federal Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the Red Cross screening process, will not accept a donation from someone who answers ‘yes’ to the question, in order to help eliminate potentially HIV-tainted blood.
“By continuing to allow the Red Cross on our campus, the university is telling all the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students that we don’t care about you,” said student senator Shauna Bates, who is co-sponsoring the legislation.
If the resolution passes with a two-thirds majority vote of the senate’s 14 members, no student-funded organization would be allowed to sponsor a blood drive. Current blood drives on campus, though, get their funding from the university’s health services department. . . .
The folly, I think, needs no further explanation. My only addition is one minor note: How is it that by rejecting to blood donated by males who have had sex with males the university is somehow telling anything to lesbian students?
Thanks very much to Considerettes, which has more on the subject, for the pointer.
Comments are closed.