Five years ago I became a single dad, which affected my income in a real way. I was a private school teacher who also did whatever side work came my way. But with my new son that became more difficult. So I turned to Biolife Plasma Center twice a week, every week for about a year and a half, as a means of padding my income. Anyone who’s ever sold blood plasma or donated blood knows that there is an extensive questionnaire that precedes the donation process. I used to always chuckle about the confidential questions. “Have you ever had a sexual encounter with another man, even once, since 1977?” “Well, let me see, was that 76 or 77?” The answer is emphatically NO! I ways found the qualifier “even once,” amusing. However, it seems the gay community in Houston, and the nation at large is not so amused.

In 1983 the Food and Drug Administration banned homosexual and bisexual men from donating blood, due to the threat of aids and the lack of ability to effectively test for it. Well, turns out this is discriminatory so the gay community in Houston and other cities held a rally last week, (or what in my opinion amounts to a publicity stunt), in which participants took an HIV test. If the tests were negative, they preceded to the blood bank where they were not permitted to donate. Then the organizers of the “Gay Blood Drive,” collected the HIV tests and sent the results to the FDA.

Ok look, I’m not a physician, so I really can’t claim to completely understand the reliability of the screening process, but nor can I believe that lifting the FDA’s ban would not introduce some level of new risk to the uninfected public. I can’t believe I have to say this but I don’t dislike gay people. I know some in fact, and they are perfectly nice, rational human beings, (or at least as rational as any human beings can be). That being said, I’m tired of the public good taking a back seat to people’s feelings. I’m truly sorry that some people feel excluded in some areas of life, I really am. But meaning no offence, does someone’s hurt feelings require the rest of us to run a few more risks? If the issue is a larger blood shortage, surely there are things we can do that don’t require us to lower the health standards of our blood supply. I don’t know that the FDA will actually respond to the protest; I just hope that whatever decision they make will be in the public’s best interest, and not made simply for political expediency.

The Texas House approved restrictions today and it’s interesting to watch the folks on either side of the issue freak out. When Wendy Davis made her filibuster last month she became the hero of the hour for the left. Overnight came the talk of a gubernatorial run. Now I don’t share Ms. Davis’s views, but I have no objection to the tactic she used. Nor by the way, did I hear charges come from the right that she had violated any rules. However, now that the bill has passed the reaction is visceral.

Reading the reader responses to the story is unfortunately very telling. I was treated to every kind of name calling and hyperbolic ugliness that has made the new radical feminism a cliché. Here is a summary of the reactions I read: “The Texas Taliban is waging a war on women again…” How cogent. I’m impressed by your alliteration. And here’s my favorite: “Keep your Rosaries’ off my ovaries’!” Based on the pics I saw, this protester has little basis for concern. Oh and I love when the leftist protesters start calling the prolife crowd NAZIS, (which I did read by the way). Oh yeah? two words, “Kermit Gosnell.” It wasn’t the Republic Party running that little Auschwitz he had going.

Look, Texas is a conservative state. There’s no denying that. It seems a majority of people in this state feel that it’s best to error in the side of life. No one’s “rights” are being denied, there is no war on women! Not a single life has been taken, (not since exiting the birth canal anyway). Limiting abortions to the twenty week limit seems entirely reasonable me. Twenty weeks should be enough time to come to a decision. As to the objection that clinics will be required to meet some new minimum standard of health… Well they are supposed to be medical facilities right? Why shouldn’t they be held to the same standards as any other outpatient surgical center? At the end of the day I suspect little will change. But the new law may serve to retrain the wholesale industry that abortion has become.