Ban on blood donation from homoaffective people: a bioethical study

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and discuss bioethical aspects that involve the ban on blood donation from homo-affective people. This is an integrative review of the literature, with a critical-reflexive approach to articles available in the Virtual Health Library and published between 2013 and 2018. Seven studies were selected that covered the theme, from which four categories emerged: “unfit for blood donation”; “are homosexuals the only ones who practice anal sex?”; “public health or heterosexism in health?”; and “considerations of principlist bioethics for blood donation from homo-affective people”, referring to the four pillars of the principlist theory. Bioethics promotes social reflections, directs lines of thought or questioning and creates new avenues for discussing the subject. The dilemmas involved in this approach are related to the denial of the four bioethical pillars to homoaffective subjects, inducing maleficence to this vulnerable group and to blood tissue recipients.

Public health; Homosexuality; Blood donors; Health equity; Human rights