同性恋遭歧视 捐献器官被拒绝

Sheryl Moore’s son lay on the bed before her. Soon, she knew, her 16-year-old boy would be taken off life support — another life lost to bullying.

谢丽尔·摩尔的儿子就躺在她的面前。她知道，不久生命支持系统就会被撤掉，她16岁的儿子即将离开人世，又一个因欺凌事件而凋零的生命。

Alexander “AJ” Betts Jr. attempted suicide in July 2013, the Des Moines Register reported at the time. He died shortly thereafter. Betts’s mother said he had been outed as gay about a year and half before his death. His friends told KCCI that schoolmates constantly made fun of him, ridiculing him for being gay, for being half African American, and for his cleft lip.

得梅因纪事报报道，小亚历山大·贝茨于2013年7月自杀，并于不久后死亡。贝茨的母亲说，自杀之前，儿子已出柜一年半。他的朋友告诉KCCI，学校同学时常因为他是同性恋，又有一半黑人血统还有他的兔唇而嘲笑、侮辱他。

Before he died, Betts had a request: Donate my organs. A 14-year-old boy received Betts’s heart, according to a letter Moore received, but she said his eyes were rejected.

去世之前，贝茨有一个请求：捐献我的器官。摩尔收信后得知，一个十四岁的男孩移植了儿子的心脏，但她说他的眼睛被拒绝接收。

A Food and Drug Administration’s guidance for donor eligibility says men who have had sex with men in the past five years “should” be ruled as “ineligible” for donating certain tissues, labeling their behavior a “risk factor.”

食品和药物管理局（Food and Drug Administration，以下简称FDA）捐赠资格指导说，在过去五年内和同性发生性关系的男人在捐赠特定组织时“应该”被判定为“不合格的”捐赠者，因为他们的一些行为是存在“危险因素”的。

“My initial feeling was just very angry because I couldn’t understand why my 16-year-old son’s eyes couldn’t be donated just because he was gay,” Moore said, according to KCCI.

“最开始我感觉非常愤怒，我无法理解儿子的眼睛无法捐献仅仅因为他是同性恋。”据KCCI报道，摩尔如是说。

The FDA’s guidance reflects its ban on blood from men who have sex with men. That policy is a by-product of the AIDS crisis that ripped through the gay men’s community decades ago.

FDA的规定表明这是为了禁止和同性产生性行为的血液。这项政策是数十年之前在男同性恋群体中爆发的艾滋危机的副产品。

The FDA explains: Men who have had sex with men “at any time since 1977 (the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States) are currently deferred as blood donors” because “a history of male-to-male sex is associated with an increased risk for exposure to and transmission of certain infectious diseases, including HIV.”

FDA解释说，和同性发生性行为的男人“自1977年（美国艾滋病流行的开始）起就被禁止献血”，因为“同性之间的性行为提高了某些特定传染性疾病的传播几率，包括艾滋病。”

Critics have long called the policy discriminatory, but the FDA says it’s necessary: “FDA’s deferral policy is based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor’s sexual orientation.”

一直以来，评论家抨击该政策是歧视，但是FDA认为这样的措施是有必要的：“这样的政策是基于某些类似艾滋病的特殊的传染方式，即血液传播，而这和同性性行为是联系在一起的，而并不是对捐献者性取向的歧视。”

In the Journal of the American Medical Association, Glenn Cohen, a bioethics law professor at the Harvard Law School, wrote that the United States should repeal the rules about blood. “We think it’s time for the FDA to take a serious look at this policy, because it’s out of step with peer countries, it’s out of step with modern medicine, it’s out of step with public opinion, and we feel it may be legally problematic,” he told CBS.

哈佛法学院生命伦理法教授格伦•科恩在美国医学会杂志发表说，美国应该废止关于献血的规定。他对CBS说，“我们认为FDA是时候仔细研究这项政策了，因为我们已经落后于同等国家，落后于现代医学和公众意见，而且它在法律上也是行不通的。

Cohen notes some contradictions in the FDA blood ban: Men who have sex with HIV-positive women or sex workers are banned for only a year.

科恩提到，在FDA关于献血的禁令中存在几个矛盾点：和女性艾滋病毒携带者发生性行为的男人，以及性工作者只被禁止一年不得献血。

Last summer, the American Medical Association voted to end the ban. According to Time magazine, William Kobler, a board member for the the association, said in a statement, “The lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men is discriminatory and not based on sound science.”

去年夏天，美国医学会投票废止该项禁令。协会董事会成员威廉·柯伯乐刊登在《时代》杂志上的声明称，“关于一生禁止和同性发生性行为的男性献血的法令是具有歧视性，并且没有科学依据的。”

In an e-mail to Time, a spokesman for the FDA wrote, “Although scientific evidence has not yet demonstrated that blood donated by [men who have sex with men] or a subgroup of these potential donors does not have a substantially increased rate of HIV infection compared to currently accepted blood donors, the FDA remains willing to consider new approaches to donor screening and testing.”

FDA发言人在给《时代》的一封邮件中写道，“和当前接受的献血者相比，尽管没有科学证据表明和同性发生性行为的男性，或者一组这样的潜在捐献者没有增加艾滋病传染的风险，FDA仍然愿意考虑为捐献者检测的新方法。”

Rules, guidelines and recommendations governing organ and tissue donation are not as clear as the FDA’s ban on blood. The nonprofit organization United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has a contract to facilitate organ procurement and transplants in United States. That contract covers “specified solid organs” such as hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys, but not eyes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On top of that, it adds, “Technically, all UNOS policies are voluntary.”

对于器官和组织捐献的规定并没有像献血规定得这么明确。非营利组织“器官共享联合网络”(以下简称UNOS)对于促进器官购买、移植有一份明确的合同。根据疾病控制和预防中心，合同内包含了“明确的”所指，如心脏、肝脏、肺和肾脏，但是没有角膜。最重要的是，它补充道，“理论上，所有UNOS的政策都是基于自愿的。”

In Betts’s case, his liver, lungs, kidneys and heart all found recipients. Unlike blood, as long as a recipient gives consent to any associated potential risks (such as HIV transmission) after counseling, certain organs can be donated. But because his mother could not confirm to the donor network that her son hadn’t been sexually active in the five years before his death, Betts’s eyes were rejected.

回到贝茨的案例上来，他的肝脏、肺、肾脏和心脏都找到了接纳者。不像血液，只要被移植者在接受忠告后，同意接受任何连带的潜在危险（如艾滋感染），该器官就可以被捐赠。但是，因为他的母亲无法向捐献组织确认贝茨在去世前五年没有发生经常发生性行为，他的眼睛因此被拒绝捐献。

“This is archaic,” Moore told KCCI. “And it is just silly that people wouldn’t get the life-saving assistance they need because of regulations that are 30 years old.”

“这实在太陈腐了，”摩尔对KCCI说，“仅仅因为存在了30多年的老规矩，就使得一些人无法得到能拯救性命的救助，这是很愚蠢的决定。”