Tensions were running high during a panel discussion on blood donation and HIV/AIDS transmission Nov. 26 in the university atrium.
Arun Smith, seventh-year human rights student and organizer of the Canadian Federation of Students-backed Challenge Homophobia and Transphobia campaign, was one of the panelists.
He criticized the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) for their lifetime ban on blood donation by men who have sex with men.
“It seems particularly arcane and archaic for Canada to have a lifetime ban and that is clearly based entirely on stigma and not on science,” Smith said.
Lorna Lemay, the national director of stakeholder relations for CBS, represented the organization at the panel.
She said the policy banning men who have sex with men does not sit well with CBS’s leadership, nor the organization’s mandate, but it is necessary to protect the health of those who receive the blood.
“We fully recognize that [the policy] causes harm to others and for that . . . we are very sorry,” Lemay said.
“We are not in the business of harming people, we are the business of saving and improving lives,” she said.
CBS, according to Lemay, has tabled a motion to reduce the lifetime ban to a five-year period. The motion has been approved by CBS, but still has to be put to Health Canada, which will approve and implement the new policy.
Smith said five years is not appropriate. With countries like the United Kingdom having a one-year period and South Africa having a six-month period, Smith said Canada’s policy, even at five years, is not progressive.
“If all X are Y, we must take precaution and thus X cannot participate,” Smith explained, when framing the issue of blood donation simply. “If we start putting up these barriers in our society, then we are admitting that not only are we being discriminatory, we are intentionally being so, and we are justifying it by saying that X people should not participate because they cannot be part of a precautionary solution.”
If society applied this logic to anything else, Smith said, people would be outraged.
“Take 9/11,” he said. “All Muslims hijack planes, ergo we must take precautions, ergo Muslims cannot be on planes – that is exactly what we are saying with regards to the blood ban.”
Hayley Dobson, Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) vice-president (student issues) organized the panel, which she said was held in preparation for World Aids Day on Dec 1.
After a motion to let CBS into CUSA-owned spaces on campus was tabled earlier in the semester, Dobson said she wanted to hold a public discussion on blood donation.
“It’s really unfortunate that more of the councillors that were at that vote didn’t come because they seemed really interested in the topic,” she said.
CUSA science councillor Gina Parker put forward the original motion, which was later defeated. She co-organized the panel discussion.
“I figured why not start a campaign that’s CUSA-wide so that students could become aware of the issues, because there are a lot of issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, there’s so many of them, blood donation is just one of them,” she said.
Smith said he hopes Canada will embrace more progressive policies that focus more on behaviours than identities.
“The world is starting to wake up to the reality that blanket bans on men who have sex with men is not a solution,” he said.
