by henigan

Created on: October 24, 2008

Some reasons people do not donate blood are personal and some just seem selfish.

There are people who do not donate blood is because it is against their religion. Sects which follow the words of their Sacred Text literally, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, may believe that sharing blood is sinful, therefore the members of these sects would not donate blood.

There are people who cannot donate blood because the rules for donating are out-dated . For instance, when you go to donate blood, the interviewer will ask you if you have ever had sex with a gay person. If you answer yes, you are forbidden to donate. This eliminates all active homosexuals and people who had sex with a gay person fifteen years ago. While AIDS is still a terrible disease, this rule needs to be changed.

If you were foolish enough to inject yourself with heroin once twenty years ago you cannot donate blood. Again, these rules are for the protection of the recipients but there have been many medical advances and discoveries in the last twenty years.

Many people who want to donate blood simply cannot..

Along the same lines, some people feel their privacy is being invaded. They do not want to answer such personal questions and will not bother donating blood for that reason.

Other people do not go to the doctor. They do not donate blood because they do not want to have their blood tested and find out they have AIDS or some other disease.

Fear can stop people from doing a lot of things, including donating blood.

There are people who, honestly, are afraid of the sight of blood. It would be enough to upset them to see their own but to be in a roomful of bags of blood would be very unnerving to them. And there are those who are afraid they will faint or have fainted before when they donated.

Also, there are those who think it would be painful. There are also those who have had good experiences donating followed by terrible ones. Three or four events of agony with poorly trained technicians may stop some people from bothering.

There are people who have tried to donate blood but their veins are very small and twisting of the needle into the vein is extremely painful. Some people work through this while others give up.

But I think the reason most people do not donate blood is they just do not get around to it. Blood drives are not heavily advertised. If there is a blood drive at someone's work or in their neighborhood, people are likely to donate.

If they know someone who needs blood now or has recently had transfusion, they are likely to donate. But most people do not go out of their way to find a way to donate blood.

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