Judge Your Kin Fairly; Do Not Profit By the Blood of Your Fellow

You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kin fairly. Do not deal basely with members of your people. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am the Eternal. (Leviticus 19:15-16)

This afternoon, I sat in on a hearing of the Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee, which was hearing testimony on a proposal to place an amendment on the ballot in Minnesota in 2012 legally restricting all marriage to one man and one woman. Unfortunately, the bill passed the committee and moves forward. There will likely be an same sex marriage ban amendment on the Minnesota ballot in 2012.

On my way back from the hearings, where I heard heartwarming, compelling, and emotional testimony from opponents to the legislation (not to mention misleading, hateful, and hurtful testimony from the proponents of the legislation), I was listening briefly to Science Friday, which featured Holly Tucker, author of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution. Most of the piece that I caught focused on the advances of medicine regarding the circulatory system and the use of blood transfusions before science knew about blood types. One comment, though, caught me by surprise.

I had never really thought about the role of Jim Crow Laws in medicine. As it turns out, the Red Cross used to refuse donations from Black donors. And even once the Red Cross began accepted blood from Black donors, blood was segregated by race. In the 1930s, African American surgeon and hemotologist, Dr. Charles Drew, developed a method for preserving blood. "The American Red Cross enlisted Drew in 1941 to establish a blood bank program in the United States. That same year, the U. S. War Department declared, 'It is not advisable to collect and mix Caucasian and Negro blood indiscriminately for later administration to members of the military forces.'" It wasn't until 1949 that the U.S. Military stopped segregating blood.

Today, of course, men who have had sex with men since 1977 are prohibited from donating blood, even though research shows that the policy is antiquated and medically inaccurate.

In the 1940s, Black citizens who chose to donate blood were not judged fairly. In the Senate hearing today, an unfair decision was rendered and a minority is being unfairly judged. We know the cost of such discrimination and it's a price we shouldn't be willing to pay.