There were more than 50 demonstrations planned as part of the National Gay Blood Drive in various U.S. cities on Friday. The drive was planned to help draw attention to the number of potential blood donors who are automatically disqualified due to their sexual orientation. In addition to men who have sex with men, women are disqualified from giving blood if within the last 12 months they have had sex with a man who at any point since 1977 has sex with another man.
The FDA's decades-long ban stared during the AIDS crisis and restricts any man, who has had sex with another man since 1977, from donating blood.
In recent years as HIV testing has improved the policy has come under fire for being discriminatory and outdated. In June the American Medical Association voted to oppose the ban....
