Completed petition Freedom to Donate Blood

In Wales gay and bisexual men are not allowed to give blood – unless they abstain from sex for three months. We would like to campaign for ‘Blood Without Bias’ giving people ‘Freedom to Donate’. This petition asks the Welsh Government to scrap the three-month deferral period, and to introduce an individualised, risk-based approach to assess sexual behaviour, rather than a simplistic process where people are grouped together based on their sexual orientation and are banned from donating blood. This is the best way to ensure that those who want to donate, and can do so safely, are able to. It is a public health issue and one of inequality, that we do not have enough blood in our blood banks and yet we choose to discriminate against a whole group of people based on their sexual orientation. There is only one solution to a national shortage of blood; remove the deferral period and stop discriminating against gay and bisexual men.