Israel’s health ministry will investigate in April whether to end the country’s ban on blood donations from gay men, Pink News reports. Under current regulations, men who report having had sex with other men since 1977 are barred from donating blood. Recent support for ending the ban came from the Israeli Labor Party, whose chairwoman and gay members wrote to the health ministry and to Magen David Adom (MDA)—the country’s emergency medical society, akin to the Red Cross—stating that blood safety should be based on whether sex is protected rather than on the genders of the participants.

To read the Pink News article, click here.