Criminalization of HIV transmission.

[Disa Uniflora]

You already know my view on the matter, that willful transmission of HIV should be a criminal act (in what form you and other lawyers can determine, but I consider a very significant thing and would demand that it come with a very serious punishment). Whether you want to call it murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, it's different from all conventional variants of any of these in some pretty important ways. Hell, I'd consider it deserving of its own class of criminal charge.

If you are doing something like this you're not simply transmitting to a primary victim your 100% lethal virus but one that will cause them significant personal and emotional cost for as long as they live. They will instantly have exceptionally high medical needs, they will bear social stigma, they will live in constant fear of common ailments that the rest of us take for granted. They can never again know a normal sex life, assuming they can find anyone who'd even consent to the most cautious of protected sexual intercourse, nor will they ever bear children. Lastly, though HIV has a relatively narrow avenue of transmission, it has a practically 100% rate of transmission along that route and thereby remains a significant contagious threat. By infecting someone with it you are potentially creating a chain of incidence that could affect not just the life of your primary victim but all sorts of people unaware of what you've done and unaware of what they're doing.

It's just inconceivable to me that there are people who support decriminalising such an act.

But anyways, I had a question actually: How many people are really going to avoid getting themselves tested for HIV just so they can engage in criminal behaviour of the sort we're talking about. I don't think that it 100% would not happen, but not being tested comes with enormous personal cost in itself. How many people would consciously take such a risk just so that they could lead 'a normal life'? Even if that normal life seems super attractive compared to the alternative, and it is, they'd still have to be exceptionally irresponsible or hateful people to suspect that they have HIV but avoid testing just so that they could live with a degree of ignorance to the consequences. Presumably if they know that willful transmission of HIV is illegal then they also have some inkling of how bad HIV is and what their unrestrained behaviour could mean. I'm not suggesting that there's any easy legal avenue for dealing with this area, because I don't think there is for so many reasons, but I question how something like this could really be made widespread behaviour as a result of criminalising HIV transmission. It's like suspecting that your halloween candy may be laced with rat poison but giving it out anyways because you like giving out halloween candy. You'd basically have to be a psychopath.

[Plata Plomo y Sangre]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

It works so well to stop assault, battery, murder, theft, rape, fraud, arson, drug/weapon trafficking, prostitution, racketeering, littering, underage drinking, drinking and driving, reckless driving, car modification, embezzlement, negligence, slavery, kidnapping, torture, and jaywalking, doesn't it?

Right, laws don't stop crime from happening one-hundred percent, so obviously let's just make nothing illegal.

[Omnileech]

Infecting someone with HIV intentionally is probably dooming that person with added misery. It's not murder though, because you can't prosecute for what might happen eventually. Someone might get infected and the next day get struck by lightning and die or die by other means.

But putting people with HIV together or hoping to use it kill prisoners or disfiguring HIV-positive people as some sort of scarlet letter is both cruel and incredibly incredibly stupid.

[Brothern]

Less Than Liz

So, simply put: what do you think of criminalization of knowingly or recklessly transmitting HIV? What would you change, if anything? If it should be pursued, does it require new, specifically tailored laws, or does it fall under current laws? How would you craft such a law?

The willful attempt to transmit the disease is no different that biological terrorism or an attempt to harm or kill. Instead of picking up a knife or a vial of smallpox, you're using a manner (blood, sexual contact) that you know will cause harm to another person.

Other than that?

No. It's a disease. We've dealt with infectious agents since the beginning of time. How/when have we suddenly decided that falling ill turns you into a criminal apt to be prosecuted for a felony? That seems offensive to me.

Disa Uniflora

But anyways, I had a question actually: How many people are really going to avoid getting themselves tested for HIV just so they can engage in criminal behaviour of the sort we're talking about.

HIV+ is already (1) seen under the lens of a harsh social stigma and (2) infects largely disadvantaged populations. That the typical HIV+ person would understand the nuisances of criminal law and thus have the confidence to seek treatment is silly. Who's going to go and get tested for HIV if there's a risk that you're criminally charged if you test positive and have accidentally infected your last partner? That's a huge incentive to drive both testing and post-diagnosis sexual activity disclosure rates into a ravine.

[Disa Uniflora]

Brothern

Disa Uniflora

But anyways, I had a question actually: How many people are really going to avoid getting themselves tested for HIV just so they can engage in criminal behaviour of the sort we're talking about.

HIV+ is already (1) seen under the lens of a harsh social stigma and (2) infects largely disadvantaged populations. That the typical HIV+ person would understand the nuisances of criminal law and thus have the confidence to seek treatment is silly. Who's going to go and get tested for HIV if there's a risk that you're criminally charged if you test positive and have accidentally infected your last partner? That's a huge incentive to drive both testing and post-diagnosis sexual activity disclosure rates into a ravine.

Someone who understands that the criminal charge is for intentionally infecting others, not accidentally infecting them. It's a pretty obvious distinction.

My problem with that argument is that there's a degree of chicken-egg in it. Nobody gets voluntarily tested for HIV without suspecting that they may have contracted HIV at some point or another. For people who are completely unaware of their being infected the law is quite irrelevant. You have to have some suspicion that you're carrying the virus AND want to go on behaving as though you don't for this not-getting-tested scenario to come into play, and I don't think there are a lot of those people.

I don't want or expect a lot of cases based on what we're talking about to happen. I'm not for broad language that can entrap unknowing transmission that occurs in spite of reasonable precautions, and I'm not for stigmatising people who have HIV any more than I'm for stigmatising the blind or the mentally disabled. They got played a s**t hand and that's all, I don't think their lives need to be made worse, and it's not like I don't also support sexual education, availability of contraception, or greater understanding of the actual risks and realities of HIV. But transmission of HIV to others is dangerous in every circumstance, and absolutely, hideously wrong in cases where it's intentional. I'm not prepared to hear out misguided fools whinging about just because they're scared that a good, necessary law might hurt someone's feelings. There's no sensible alternative to such a law, unless we're fine with a person who'd do such a thing as wilfully infect unknowing people with HIV just walking the streets, free as a bird.

[eiji_panda13]

It's fair.

If you get tested for HIV, are found positive, and are told by your doctor to not engage in unprotected sex and to alert all sexual partners of your condition and then you choose to have unprotected sex and give people HIV. You are a p***k.

I don't sympathize with you because you are hurting other people. Especially since HIV is mutating so rapidly and becoming resistant to treatment and progressing rapidly to AIDS.

It has become a death sentence because of situations like this.

[GaIvatron]

If the transmission occurred because the person with the HIV was transmitting it with malicious intent OR ignorance to tell the partner before you have sex; then yes I say that it would be considered criminal.