Nobody should enjoy the right to deliberately make others sick. But just because a HIV positive person has consensual sex with another cannot impute ulterior motives on them. What if they are just taking their chances hoping that the other party does not catch it? Why should one partner be criminalized for engaging in the same act?
I'm sorry but I cannot agree with anything you have said in defense of what is deplorable behaviour. This you've desrcibed here, with the "chances" is the very definition of recklessness. Recklessness is enough for us to convict someone of murder and sentence him to death, we treat it no different from deliberate intent. A drunk or overspeeding driver takes such chances, not intending to roll over and kill the people in his car. But even if they got into the car smelling his breath, he will do serious jail time if someone winds up dead in most jurisdictions. The chances the HIV person who KNOWS of his status is taking in having unprotected sex with another without telling or while lying is Russian roulette whereas the other person thinks he's playing a game where there might not be a bullet in the gun at all.
Some things are matters of the public good. The HIV person must have the greater responsibility because he KNOWS of his status, seeing as it his own, than where he does not. Anything else is maliciously endangering someone else's life and unconscionable. No one should defend such behaviour. It does not deserve protection. In fact, in some places in the USA (and I think even UK) people have been sentenced to life for just this behaviour where they knew of their status. If you know you have a dangerous disease you should not sneak it into other people in the name of taking chances that the other person 50-50 does not get infected. Honestly, If Kenya were a functional nation I would support jailing any person who
knowingly had sex with another while infected but failed to disclose it or lied about it when asked. Because if you are talking about a sane adult, there is no way of separating "knowingly" from "deliberately". He has chosen to subject the other person to his disease. That is deliberate.
HIV positive people already suffer enough trauma without the additional burden of having to reveal it to their potential partners.
With respect, I honestly find this suggestion shocking. If it is so traumatic to tell someone who you are about to HAVE SEX WITH the TRUTH about your HEALTH that affects them directly, maybe you don't have to have sex with that particular person???? I suppose it may be traumatic for a car dealer to reveal the truth about the real condition of the car he is selling to the buyer, but hey. We still protect good faith in such contracts. I dont see why we should offer less protection for much graver transactions that are affecting us so.
The law does not prevent one from asking if they want to know. The HIV party should also be at liberty to reveal or conceal personal medical information. Criminalizing such things creates stigma that tends to send them underground. In any case, in a corrupt society like Kenya, anybody can claim anything and you wont be any wiser.
The HIV person is not being asked to reveal such info to any Tom Dick and Harry, just those directly affected, those who may get and spread the disease to others. Similarly, the law doesn't force anyone to sleep with anyone. Perhaps if the risk of honesty is too great (and it is
at least equal to the risk one can take of infecting another) then that person may want to calculate those risks before sleeping around and spreading the disease further. I suppose if that happened, that would be something I think positive, not something to complain over---That HIV persons are having less unprotected sex with less people?--sounds like a winning formula to me. Like I said, my only issue is the law's futility, especially in Kenya, not its principle,which I find not only proper but good.
Topic: Court Throws Out Unconstitutional AIDS Law (Read 8228 times)