END the ban on homosexual men donating blood, is the plea from UL’s LGBT society, ‘Out in UL’.
They started a petition to bring an end to the Irish Blood Transfusion Service’s(IBTS) blanket ban on blood donations from sexually active gay men, and were disappointed with what they claim, was a negative reaction from others at the University.
A thread appeared on the University opinions lists, which is distributed to all staff and research students, entitled: “Protest Against PSA’s (Postgraduate Student Association) Opposition to Blood Collection in UL,” and contained remarks from several staff members and research students.
One comment read: “Why is homosexuality okay, but homophobia is not? This seems like unfair discrimination”.
Another contributor said, if he was homosexual, he would not be offended by not being allowed to donate blood.
“Similarly, those who choose to smoke should not be offended when asked not to smoke in public buildings”.
Michael Bourke, President of UL Postgraduate Student Association, described comments made as “blatantly homophobic”.
Other users presented a strong opposition to the petition, which, they felt, was interfering with a lifesaving process.
Mr Bourke, who initiated the petition, commented: “It did not interfere with or discourage blood donation from students, we merely sought signatures for a campaign to have the ban lifted”.
He said that once he had clarified the nature of the petition with some of the contributors, they apologised and retracted their comments.
The petition seeks reform of the IBTS policy which bans gay men who have been sexually active, from donating blood, as well as restrictions on women who have been sexually active with a man who has had sex with another man.
Mr Bourke added: “There is no basis for this ban, statistics now clearly show that the level of HIV in the gay community is much lower than that in the heterosexual community”.
The UL Students Union’s Equality Policy states that the IBTS’s presence on campus cannot be promoted because of discriminatory policy against homosexuals.
A spokesperson said that they did not actively discourage or promote students from giving blood.
The issue has been ongoing in UL since 2002, and changes to the Equality Policy were encouraged in 2007 by then Campaigns and Services Officer, Patrick McHugh.
McHugh continued: “It was an equality issue that third party organisations who discriminated against the student population would not be facilitated by the Student’s Union”.
He believes that the generic ban is flawed, and described the IBTS policy as a farce: “It promotes the concept that gay blood is dirty and straight blood is clean… HIV doesn’t discriminate between gay or straight. If this was a race issue, would it be overlooked in the same way?”.
When contacted, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service referred to an article written by Dr William Murphy, national medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, in 2006, calling for reform of the ban.
Dr Murphy described the policy as ‘blatantly discriminatory,’ concluding: “It would be a far better position for human and societal reasons if the transfusion services were to remove the ban on homosexual men”.
