Human Connections 1 | Page 11

Questions for you

Would you help this cause? How would you? Why would you?

problem’s it can cause. So I went looking for both more information on this topic as well as anything being done to put a stop to this problem. From there I found out about the petitions that I mentioned earlier and about a few groups in place that have the ultimate goal of getting this ban eradicated, both for the base rights of MSM and to help America with its depleted blood supply.

There were two groups that really stood out more than the rest to me, Banned4life and Change.org. Change.org is a place where people with virtually any issue can come and find other people who want it to change. The website helps connect people to various resources they might need and it also provides people with a way to make a petition to take to the government in an organized

way to get things changed. Banned4life is an organization that is dedicated solely to the fixing of the blood ban though. It was founded by a young gay couple when one of them, Blake, was turned away from donating blood for his friend Emily. It was then that he learned about the blood ban and why it was in place. This was in 2013, since then Blake and his partner have started up this organization whose main goal is to not only be rid of the ban, but to ensure that all healthy people can donate blood.

As you can probably tell, Banned4life was the organization that stuck out the most to me. They seem genuine in their intent and even encouraged eligible blood donors to donate in the place of someone who couldn’t. Their entire organization is a community that helps people not only get the blood they need (they host blood drives as well as encourage eligible donors to donate blood), but also gives people the sense of togetherness that they want to when faced with adversity such as this unchanging law.

The more I read about Banned4life and the history of this very ban the more I wanted to help. I realized that I wanted that world Banned4life wants. I wanted the government to look at blood as just then and not something to segregate people with. I wanted the reason you get turned away from a blood donation clinic to be because you were sick or pregnant, not because you were an MSM. I wanted there to be enough blood in the US for people to never have to worry about whether or not hospitals will have enough should an emergency comes up.. I wanted the same world that Banned4life wanted, that MSM wanted, that any person that understood this problem should want. The only problem was that I