5 Sep 2000
Give Blood
Give Blood. It always burns me up when the blood drive hits campus. The folks at the little table always ask me to participate, and I always have to say “Sorry, I’m not allowed to.”
Last year at IU, I put together a petition drive protesting blood donation policies. That was in super-liberal Bloomington. Here in ultra-conservative Kirksville, I don’t think it’s even worth trying to collect signatures.
(links blatantly stolen from The Brad, who does not have permalinks)
I ran into this a little over a year ago, when my stepdad’s baby grandson Joe needed a blood transfusion from four different donors. They needed O-positive and nothing else, so my mom asked me to go down with them and donate. I was all for it, and pretty blase about the whole experience. (Except when actually donating; they had us facing a television and watching Xena. My step-grandmother, who hadn’t seen it before, was all, “This is the best show! Get ’em, sister!” That was cool. I digress.) They ask you a battery of questions, and towards the end, the intern asked me, “Have you ever had sexual relations with another man since 1977?” I was kind of stymied. What the hell did that have to do with anything? Fortunately for li’l sproggen Joe, I could answer honestly, “No.” If Joe needed the transfusion now, I would’ve been denied the chance to donate, and they’d be scrambling to find another O-positive donor that could find the time to donate, and he may not get the blood he would have needed. What an unnecessary waste of time and resources.
Jason | 6 Sep 2000