Lithuania has removed a question about homosexual relations for men in the questionnaires handed out to blood donors, according to amendments drafted by the country’s Health Ministry.
As of May 1, all donors will be asked the same question about unprotected sexual relations they have had in the last six months.
"By making it possible for homosexual people to become blood donors, Lithuania is coming out of the fear and closed-mindedness that date back to the Soviet era,” said Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, an openly gay lawmaker and member of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee and the country's National Blood Centre (NKC).
“A person's ability to become a blood donor is not determined by their sexual orientation but by their behaviour and health," he said in a statement.
Currently, questions discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation have been removed in Argentina, Hungary, Italy, Spain, South Africa, and Russia.
The NKC figures show that 2.35 thousand litres of blood on average are donated every month in Lithuania.
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