Post

And so I appear yet again with a dastardly surprise - a discussion post for Biomedical Donation Omnibus Act! (Another surprise - its thread! Shock!)

The proposed resolution aims to cover a loophole in WA law wherein minorities can be discriminated in tissue donation. It does this first off by defining what biomedical tissue is, and then going on to establish the freedom to donate without discrimination (excluding cases wherein an individual was recently in an area with a disease outbreak). It also mandates that biomedical tissue storage should prevent contamination. Additionally, no one shall be forced to undertake a risky donation or acceptance of donor tissue without informed consent.

While I praise this resolution for its intention, I feel it suffers from a few key flaws. The first one is regarding Section 2b. - which states that nations cannot penalize an individual for donating tissue. This places the proposal in direct contrast with resolution GA#546, which states the following:

The ga wrote:

If a prospective blood donor knows or suspects that they are a carrier for a blood-borne illness they can be prohibited from donating blood, and it shall be considered a criminal offense to knowingly attempt to donate unsafe blood.

Clearly, the proposal contradicts standing law (GA#546) - which in my opinion is a good enough reason to vote against.

Another thing is that the proposal's primary concern (that GA#217 - the resolution that currently regulates most biomedical donations - allows for discrimination) may not hold merit. GA#217 has very specific wording as follows:

The ga wrote:

DECLARES that prospective donors of biomedical tissues shall not be discriminated against without a valid medical rationale, such as blood and tissue typing or the presence of a dangerous contagion.

GA#217 makes it clear that donation discrimination cannot occur unless there is some form of valid medical reason related to the safety of the material itself. Nations can't just say "being part of X minority = valid medical reason" because that's clearly against GA#35 - that'd clearly be discrimination based on an arbitrary characteristic, and therefore illegal. Which effectively makes the proposal-at-vote not really necessary.

Thus, for these reasons, I recommend voting AGAINST "Biomedical Donation Omnibus Act".