Father and Mother

By Gldmeier @gldmeier
There is an interesting fight going on right now with Magen David Adom and the Haredi community. As per instructions from the government, MDA initially switched their forms for blood donation (and other forms) from asking for the names of the donors father and mother to asking for the names of parent 1 and parent 2.
This was done to be more sensitive to gay couples where there is not a classic mother and father - there might be two fathers and two mothers or some other combination of parents who identify in other ways.
While "parent 1" and "parent 2" are kind of general and pareve and dont imply anything on its own, the Haredi community was incensed over this change and its tacit support for homosexual lifestyles, even though it was not MDA's choice but one imposed on it by the government.
There used to be many blood drives for MDA among various yeshivot and they would raise a  lot of liters of blood through the Haredi donors, but that has since dried up, largely but not completely, because of the new MDA forms. MDA is even complaining now of a serious shortage of blood in the blood banks.
Interestingly, while MDA has refused to go back to the original forms, as demanded by the Haredi community, that state mother's name and father's name explicitly, they have removed that section entirely and no longer ask for information about the parents. Some say this was an attempt to solve the problem - they wont ask for mother and father as government does not allow it but they also wont ask for the parent 1 and parent 2 that is so upsetting to some. Seems like a good compromise to me. Others say they stopped a little while ago because the information is not really necessary any longer anyway based on demographics. The first reason makes more sense to me to be the cause, considering the timing, but whatever.
Regardless of why they got rid of parent 1 and parent 2, it was not good enough to resolve the issue and calm the Haredi ire, and bring back the blood donors from that community. Despite the offending terms not being on the current forms, the Haredi community, via its leadership, is demanding that MDA bring back the original forms that asked for the names of father and mother. For now MDA is refusing but they are facing a serious shortage of blood and may have to capitulate (assuming they are legally able to).
To me it seems like getting rid of those questions entirely should have been a fair resolution, but it seems the Haredi community wants to make a point.
  
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