The House approved Thursday in plenary session a draft law of the PS on the criteria for excluding blood donation. From 1 July 2023, the exclusion period before being able to donate blood will increase, for men who have sex with men (MSM), from 12 months after the last sexual intercourse to 4 months.
The text is the result of a compromise in the majority. Several parties, including the PS, would have liked to completely eliminate what appears to be discrimination but preferred to support this step forward. The debates focused in particular on a first opinion from the Flemish Red Cross and that of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium expressing fears about the quality of the blood or the lack of means. These are the arguments that led the N-VA to abstain, the Flemish nationalists claiming to want to apply the precautionary principle.
These arguments did not convince DéFI, which tried to amend the proposal in order to remove any period of abstinence, in vain. Ecolo-Groen has already tabled a new bill aimed at completely abolishing the deadline from 2024. The MR has assured its support for a future proposal aimed at eliminating discrimination. The PTB for its part approved the text, however qualifying this “small progress” as “symbolic”.
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