Quite a bit of ink has been devoted to the recent Health Canada ban on gay/bi men donating organs, with many of the opinions seeing it as a ridiculous, if not outright homophobic, bit of bureaucratic piffle.
Given this most recent ban - coupled with the long-standing ban on blood donation by any male who has had sex with another male, even once, since 1977 - it would appear to be little more than a reaction against gay and bisexual men. Apparently, the science behind it is quite suspect. At any rate, if homosexuals donating our organs were such a high risk endeavour, why on earth has it taken this long to be banned? Not only that, but the time frame for blood donations versus organ donations is totally different.
In the case of donating blood the rule is that even one same-sex experience - even if low risk sexual contact - in the last 31 years is enough to disqualify a man from ever donating his blood, no matter how rare a type it may be or how badly needed. In the case of donating one’s organs, it’s only five years.
I used to donate blood quite a bit back before what is now the Canadian Blood Services (formerly the Red Cross) decided my blood just wasn’t bloody well good enough. On one level, I was upset but I dealt with it and eventually thought, “Okay, fine...don’t take it, then.” However, every time I see a call for blood (“It’s In You To Give”), I get a twinge of...I don’t know...regret, maybe, or shame?
Applied shame, mind you; not shame that comes from anything I’ve done or not done, and I resent that. I have fought against the dominant culture’s tendency to make me, and my brothers and sisters in queerdom, feel guilt, feel shame, feel icky because we happen to be gay or lesbian or bisexual.
“It’s In You To Give”. Yeah, well, apparently it’s not in me quite the right sort of way. Talk about an ironic phrase...
I did understand the ban on donating blood given the science and understanding at the time. We had finally determined that HIV was, in fact, a blood-borne infection, we had had far too many individuals inadvertently infected with HIV and Hepatitis because of inadequate screening, and the majority of HIV cases, at the time, were within the homosexual men’s community. The thinking back then was, it was better to be overly-cautious than responsible for more misery and death.
However, in the years since, HIV screening has advanced significantly. We can now screen for the virus itself, not just its antibodies, assuming they show at all. Heating blood to a certain temperature kills the virus. In other words, there are any number of actions Canadian Blood Services could take to ensure the safety of the blood supply, so a ban against a specific group (i.e. men who have sex with men) but not against other groups (i.e. women who have had multiple sexual partners or men who have had multiple female sexual partners, for that matter) is clearly discriminatory.
The ban on donating blood by men who have had sex with another man is being challenged and will eventually wend its methodical way through the courts and the court of public opinion. Frustrating, yes, this slow turning of the wheels of justice, but sometimes that’s just how things get changed.
But then, out of the blue, Health Canada announces a ban on us donating organs, any organ; cornea, heart, lungs, kidney, bone marrow, doesn’t matter. If it came out of a gay man, they don’t want it. It’s tainted or potentially tainted. Ward it off with a crucifix...oh, can’t do that; a bit medieval wouldn’t you say? Okay, let’s just ban the sodomites from donating.
Is it a homophobic reaction, though? Well, an argument could be made it is exactly that.
Health Canada provides funding and programs to address the health issues faced by a variety of specific population groups; First Nations, immigrants, youth, and women spring immediately to mind. And these programs are a good thing. However, is there funding and programs directed towards the GLBT communities? No.
Oh sure, Health Canada is involved in developing strategies and providing funding in the battle against HIV/AIDS; that counts for something, doesn’t it? Except the strategies and funding around HIV/AIDS target those First Nations, immigrants, youth, and women - there is nothing directed towards gay men, bisexuals, or other men who have sex with men no matter how they identify in regards to their sexual orientation.
As much as we might resist the statistics, the reality is men who have sex with men (gay, bi, or curious) comprise 75 percent of the cases of HIV/AIDS in Canada and, frighteningly enough, 45 percent of new infections each year. Clearly, some sort of well-funded national strategy needs to be formulated and the work not just left up to chronically under-funded community-based AIDS service organizations.
On top of that, Health Canada is the prime force behind not changing the policy on blood donation. Despite advances in science, and scientific perception, that confirm such a ban based on sexuality (as opposed to sexual behaviour) just does not hold up, Health Canada refuses to end the ban.
Now, I will admit to some ambivalence around donating my own organs. Oh, I totally see the advantages; it could save someone’s life. Let’s face it, if I’m dead I’m not going to need the organs, but the idea of being carved up post mortem and parts of me distributed...well, it creeps me out. While I am no longer “churched”, or even particularly view myself as Christian, I still harbour a lingering feeling that if my body is incomplete, and assuming there is something after death besides oblivion, I probably already have a few strikes against me.
If there is a just and benevolent Deity to whom I have to answer (and there are times I think there is, or might be, and times I think there isn’t) and the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and a few other faiths are true, dismembering my physical body might compromise my hereafter. I mean, it might. Maybe. I don’t know. While part of me dismisses such dogmatic mumbo-jumbo, another part of me keeps circling around “Yeah...but what if....”
On the other hand a benevolent and all-knowing Deity is going to understand the charity and selflessness of giving up a part of oneself so that another might live. The whole basis of Christianity is centred on that very precept.
So, it comes down to individual choice, the whole basis on which our system of governance and way of life is centred.
Thing is, Health Canada has, with a stroke of a pen, removed the right of every human being in this country (or queer ones anyway) to make their own decision. Right, wrong or indifferent, if I choose to donate or not to donate my organs, whatever the reason, that’s my choice. If you choose to donate them, that’s yours. But that choice has been removed by bureaucrats. It’s not only our choice to donate that has been taken away, but the potential recipient’s choice to accept. A double whammy.
This sort of mentality harkens back in the 1950’s and before. What if a black person donated blood and that got into a white person’s body? Back then, it was perceived as compromising the white person’s bodily integrity, polluting them in some fashion, rendering them ‘less white’ since they now clearly carried at least some ‘black blood’ in their veins. Blood, don’t forget, has historically been imbued with all sorts of power. Blood lines. In the blood. Of the blood. The Blood of Christ. The Blood of Martyrs. Sacred blood. Holy blood. Yeah, you don’t mess with blood....
Anyone still holding onto such ideas would be ridiculed, at best, and accused of being a bigot at worst. Human blood is human blood and as long as it is properly screened and the donor’s blood type matches the recipient’s, who cares who donated it?
Well, Canadian Blood Services seems to care if it’s from some guy who had sex with another guy. And Health Canada cares too, if the organs that blood made viable came from some guy who had sex with another guy.
Will my recipient become gay with a “a gay heart” and “gay blood” coursing through their veins? Will the recipient of my cornea suddenly see the world through the eyes of a gay man? As much as I think that more people should see the world through our eyes, and live life with the lion heart of a gay man, that’s just not the way it works – yet lives could be saved nonetheless.
