Brazil Senate bans discrimination against homosexual blood donors

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The bill, which will now be sent to the Chamber of Deputies, includes a provision in the National Policy on Blood Components and Hemoderivatives, and establishes penalties for noncompliance.

Rapporteur Senator Humberto Costa highlighted the Federal Supreme Court (STF) legal backing, which in 2020 ruled that a 2016 Ministry of Health ordinance was unconstitutional. In the regulation, the Ministry considered men who had had sex with other men ineligible to donate blood for 12 months.

“In spite of a Supreme Court ruling, these spurious rules demand a firm position from the National Congress, and this firmness is within the scope of this bill,” said the rapporteur in his opinion.

“The government cannot address the LGBTQIA+ community as a group of people representing a danger to public health; the right to be supportive, the right to actively participate in society, the right to be the way one is cannot be restricted to any group,” he added.

After the approval, the bill’s author Fabiano Contarato recalled that all donated blood goes through testing and, therefore, there is no reason to exclude potential donors solely based on their sexual orientation.

“Every blood donation undergoes the same rigorous testing procedure to ensure infection prevention. There is no second-class blood, because there should be no second-class human being. Excluding anyone from donating solely based on their sexual orientation is yet another perverse form of exclusion and violation of LGBTQIA+ people,” the senator argued.

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