There
is a crisis. In modern, tolerant, let-it-all-hang-out America, there
is a place where you must be straight, even moral, or they simply do
not want you.
Some narrow-minded religious sect, no doubt? But these allow for conversions.
Even when it is in desperate need, this organization turns from you
if you ever were immoral. Of course, no institution could explicitly
shun people on moral grounds, for some busybody court would surely overturn
it. No, the language of science must cover the sin of morality. What
is this retrograde institution that even proscribes sex, if not exercised
in a monogamist, heterosexual relationship?
It is the American Red Cross. One could never tell from its governing
board, which is properly nonpartisan, nondenominational and multicultural.
A majority seem to be Democrats or moderate Republicans, people who
shy from religious fundamentalism as a vampire from the cross. So what
is going on?
In fact, a Red Cross application does ask if one has had intercourse
with more than one partner, if one has had sex with another male, if
one has ever had sexually transmitted diseases. It tries to sniff our
drug use and abuse of alcohol. The questions even get somewhat racial,
requiring one's race, asking if one's family is Hispanic, or whether
one is from certain African countries or not. How us this possible in
the land of political correctness?
Obviously, something is very wicked or very profound. With the American
Red Cross, it is not surprisingly something very serious, life threatening
in fact. The application referred to is one that must be completed if
one is allowed to give blood. Yes, allowed, for donating blood is very
different from the old days. Gone is the time anyone was dragged off
the street to give the needed pint. Tramps cannon sell blood anymore.
There are two reasons why, AIDS and lawsuits.
Early in the AIDS epidemic, the blood supply became tainted and the
innocent who were infected sued. Unlike a government agency that cannot
be sued, the Red Cross had no alternative but to clean up its act (literally)
or go out of business. Incidentally, this is one of the best reasons
to choose private control of health and welfare rather than government.
One cannot sue the government but a lawsuit focuses the private mind
sharply to reform poor practices. And reform they did.
Testing the blood would seem the most obvious solution to assure that
AIDS and other disease threats are not present. Of course, this is the
center of today's practice. Yet, some disease escapes detection - it
may be too early in the process for measurement, it may be a unique
strain for which there are not tests, or it may be totally new. The
number of tests are finite and the threats are very many. To be as safe
as possible - and if it was you or one of yours, you would demand it
- there must be additional measures. The best way is to minimize risk
factors - factors that are associated with disease and AIDS in particular.
This is why male homosexuality, promiscuity and drug use are relevant
questions. They are highly correlated with AIDS infection and to other
diseases that may contaminate the blood supply.
HIV infection is the leading cause of death among males 25 to 44 years
of age, principally due to male to male sexual contact. HIV was the
fourth leading cause of death among women of this age group and was
the leading cause among black women. Indeed the majority of American
women diagnoses with AIDS were black (59 percent) or Hispanic (17 percent).
Non-Hispanic black women had 165 percent higher rates of reported AIDS
than white women. The great majority of women (79 percent) contracted
AIDS from drug use or heterosexual contact with homosexual males outside
of marriage.
The left, with Herculean effort, utilizes its media control to indoctrinate
the culture with its "anything goes" life philosophy. But when life
gets serious, society turns from it to reality. In the real world, there
are healthy and unhealthy ways of living. Medicine can do much to offset
the problems of unhealthy lifestyles, but there usually are residual
effects and some of these are dangerous to others. When dealing with
something as essential to human life as blood, mindless left-wing sentimentalism
will just not fly.
When it comes to transmitting AIDS, people get serious with their institutions,
at least outside of Washington. Mother nature will have her way no matter
how strongly liberal ideological blinders distort the media and culture.
Not all of the bias, demonstrations or threats in the world will change
that fact.
Not surprisingly, there is a blood shortage, That is the crisis, and
only the moral can help. The need is great and the supply short. So
call the Red Cross today, if you can measure up.
Donald
Devine, former director Of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
is a columnist and a Washington-based policy consultant and a Vice Chairman
for the American Conservative Union.
