REALity  Volume XXXIV  Issue No. 5 May 2015

Homosexual activists insist that society must accept their sexual acts as being the same as those of heterosexuals. Anything less, they proclaim is discriminatory.  This is the reason why these activists are heavily lobbying the Canadian Blood Services, demanding that blood donations from homosexuals be treated the same as donations from others.  The Canadian Blood Services has declined to do so for the all too obvious reason that homosexual sexual acts are particularly risky behaviour.

For example, in Canada, men comprise 75% of all HIV cases, and of those, 64% are men who have sex with men.

The next most HIV prevalent male category is intravenous drug users, but they consist of only 12% of HIV carriers. Even though homosexuals make up a minority of the Canadian population, they still represent 50% of all new HIV cases – i.e., they are identified as one of the most likely groups to have HIV.

The Canadian Blood Services is a not-for-profit charity funded by the provinces, but at arms’ length from them. It replaced the Canadian Red Cross in blood collection work in 1998.  This occurred because, under the Red Cross, Canada had one of its greatest health disasters because of tainted blood donations, which caused 800 deaths.  There were also 400 tainted blood recipients, who are still living with HIV, and, as many as 20,000 living with Hepatitis C.

As a result of this tragedy, the Canadian Blood Services has insisted that no blood can be accepted if a donor has had sex with a man during his lifetime.

Under political pressure from homosexual activists, however, the ban was relaxed in 2013 to permit blood from homosexuals, who have not had sex with a man for a five year period. According to EGALE, the homosexual lobby group, the five year ban is still highly unreasonable and unacceptable.  It calls it “intrinsically abhorrent to the fundamental Canadian values of equality and non-discrimination”.  But what about the right of the public to be protected re the public’s blood transfusion system?  Surely, the public has rights too. 

Concern about homosexuals donating blood is not just peculiar to Canada, as many of the most gay-friendly countries, including Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium maintain a lifetime ban on blood donations from “men who have sex with men”.

To be sure, the Canadian Blood Services carefully tests for HIV and every other blood-borne disease. But the HIV has a brief early period when it doesn’t show up in the tests.  The consequences of a false negative are so devastating, that the Canadian Blood Services doesn’t take chances and does “category screening”, as well, by excluding blood donations not only from homosexuals, but also from prostitutes, johns and intervenous drug users.  Also, donation bans extend to donors who lived in France and England during the 1980’s Mad Cow Disease epidemic.  Further, high rates of HIV infection in West Africa has led to Canadian Blood Services banning any donor who has spent extended periods of time in any of the seven countries in that particular area of Africa.

Refusing blood donations is not discrimination against homosexuals, but, rather, the protection of the public from innocently becoming the recipients of contaminated blood.

It’s easy for homosexual activists to accuse the Canadian Blood Services of being “homophobic”. However, the Canadian Blood Services has the responsibility of protecting the public. Political interference by homosexual activists, who want to push their propaganda, regardless of the serious problems it can cause to innocent Canadians, is not acceptable.

Related articles:

July 12 2016
Waiting period for Gay Men to Donate Blood in Canada to drop from 5 years to 1   LifeSite news, Ksenia Koltusky