Salt Lake Tribune (01.13.05) - Friday, January 14, 2005
Mark Eddington; Ronnie Lynn

"They just ask very sexually explicit questions without parental consent," said Ogborn, 37, who argued that state law dictates the sexual content to which students can be exposed, and by whom. Technicians' questions like, "Have you ever had sex with a male who has sex with another male?" go too far, Ogborn said. "As a parent, how I read it, it looks to me like it violates the law."

But the questions, which are part of the screening process for HIV and other STDs, are legal, even in public schools, according to school board attorneys. State law does address the sexual content that can be covered in regular instruction, but the board does not consider the Red Cross questions to be instruction.

Julia Wulf, acting CEO of the Red Cross' Lewis and Clark Blood Region, said the organization already sends a parental permission slip that includes frank sexual definitions home with each student under age 17 - the minimum age for donating blood in Utah. The explicit questions and definitions are, Wulf said, required by the Food and Drug Administration. "Our primary concern is the safety of the blood supply. Unfortunately, there are people who want to give blood who don't understand what is considered sexual contact," Wulf said.

Through 75 school-based Red Cross drives, high-school donors contribute about 5 percent of the 100,000 units of blood collected in the state annually. The state board declined to stop the drives but agreed to develop a policy requiring organizers to give parents plenty of advance notice of the questions asked and to require parental permission - a step Red Cross says it already takes.
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