SNP want Scotland to treat gay and straight blood donors equally
The Scottish National Party has said they want their nation to become the first in the UK to repeal the gay blood ban and treat all donors equally.
Peter Lloyd
Monday, 24 October 2011
The move came at the SNP conference in Inverness, where delegates backed a motion criticising the UK Health Department's Scientific Advisory Committee's updated policy as "wholly inadequate".
Recently, it replaced a lifetime ban on all gay men donating blood to those who have not been sexually active in the past year.
According to the Press Association, Glasgow Cathcart delegate Stewart McDonald said: "It is a discriminatory policy based not entirely on research, but instead partly on prejudice on homosexuality."
However, he said the policy would still mean that the "vast majority" of gay men who practice safe sex and test HIV negative will still be unable to give blood.
He added: "We have a situation where two men in a perfectly safe, healthy sexual relationship are prevented from doing what the Blood Transfusion Service calls `something amazing`: they will be prevented from helping to save lives.
"Most gay men do not have, and never will have HIV. Their blood is screened in the exact same way as everyone else`s, and if safe should be donated in the same way as everyone else`s. The policy we have just now, I would say, is unfit for purpose. And this is 21st Century Scotland. We can do better than this."
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