Homosexual, Laurent Drelon can donate blood only if he has observed a period of abstinence of one year preceding the donation. This 48-year-old Frenchman filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, as his lawyer learned from AFP on Friday, June 22.
It was in 2004 that Laurent Drelon wanted to donate blood for the first time. He is then referenced as “homosexual” on his donor file. Homosexual men have only been able to donate blood since 2016. Before and since 1983 they were prohibited from doing this because of the risk of AIDS transmission.
A request rejected by the Council of State in 2017
But this authorization is subject to certain conditions and in particular a sexual abstinence of one year, which must be declared during a preliminary interview. This decree which applies “regardless of the protected or unprotected nature of the relationship in question and of the stable, occasional, multiple or anonymous nature of the partner, or of the latter’s serological status” and which maintains “the discrimination of homosexual and bisexual men in front of the blood donation “, could read AFP in the request.
One-year abstinence as a condition “is based solely on sex and sexual orientation (…) and infringes (the) right to respect for private life”, guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention European Human Rights Commission, it is also indicated. This is the first time that the ECHR will have to rule on whether or not French legislation is discriminatory “on this point, Mr. Patrice Spinosi, the applicant’s lawyer, told AFP.
In 2017, the Council of State rejected the request of four associations (Mousse, Stop Homophobie, Idaho France Committee and Local Elected Against AIDS) to lift this abstinence condition, specifying that “the Minister of Social Affairs and Health relied not on sexual orientation but on sexual behavior and did not adopt an unlawful discriminatory measure “.
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