Tag Archives: blood ban

Caron Lindsay

Blood donation gets more equal and inclusive

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th June 2021 - 10:29 am

I was smiling a lot on Monday. On World Blood Donation Day, in the middle of Pride Month, the blood donation rules changed so that they were the same whatever your sexuality.

A decade ago, men who had ever had sex with men were completely banned from giving blood. The rules have been gradually relaxed since then but we now have a more equal system based on a level playing field.

This means that many gay and bisexual men can now give blood, whereas before we lost out on their donations.

This applies over England, Scotland and Wales.

My friend Euan was one of them.

Euan was involved with the then Liberal Youth Scotland’s Freshers campaign to end the blood ban in 2010. The year before, LYS had brought a motion to Scottish Conference calling for an evidence based, scientific approach to this issue.

They kept pushing on this. Euan and his co-President Hannah Bettsworth led a campaign on the issue when they were co-Presidents of LYS a few years later.

It made me really happy that their campaigning over years worked. These things are now decided on the basis of scientific evidence because people campaigned and took up the issue.

The Liberal Democrats have been working to bring this about for 15 years.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Wright
    Not all British islands are alike legally. A resident of the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man, is not automatically a British Citizen, nor can they vote in ...
  • Iain Donaldson
    Alex, wasn’t that how the conversion of council estates into housing companies started, with the mistaken idea that debt could be assigned outwith government ...
  • Alex B
    Not tax raising but debt raising capability. Anyway my experience is that local councils have no experience of large scale building projects. So whichever way y...
  • Iain Donaldson
    Jana, if Burnham's speech marks the beginning of a wider national debate, that can only be a good thing. England's over-centralisation is a genuine problem. How...
  • Paul Holmes
    Alex, you are not seriously suggesting that unelected and entirely unaccountable Housing Associations should be given tax raising powers? Also, can you point...