I have a big problem with it. As a human being, of at least some conscience, it is a person’s responsibility to warn potential partners of this sort of condition. If we accept the idea that we can sometimes be responsible for the well being of others, then it would be our duty to inform people of this sort of thing.
To not say anything, just to get your rocks off, would be simply wrong.
Are you really going to hang your hat on that? In terms of determining whether a disease constitutes a public health concern, the mortality rate is irrelevant.
Everyone is exposed to airborne pollution, and yet shockingly few people die from it. For some reason it’s still a public health concern. Only a tiny fraction of the people who travel in aircraft every year are killed, and yet we spend more on the TSA and NTSB than on any other transport authority.
One can argue that there are several interrelated factors determining whether something is a public health concern and what actions if any to take.
- Absolute mortality rate
- Relative mortality rate
- Disruptiveness of proposed solutions
- Available methods for mitigation and prevention of disease spread
So in your example, while influenza DOES kill more people than HIV (1), it also doesn’t kill very many of the total number of people who get it (2) AND prevention of it spread requires quarantine, which is highly disruptive and problematic. (3) The governement response to influenza appears to be along the lines of advising methods of reducing spread as well as making vaccination available, an acceptable level of disruption while taking some action.
In the case of HIV, it kills comparatively few people (1) but the relative mortality rate is high (2) and, crucially, transmission is next to impossible unless you’re engaging in a handful of specific, generally voluntary actions. This seems a much less disruptive case to mandate some form of disclosure–and note, quarantine would be equally idiotic here, due to it being overkill.
I disagree with you often, but I find that I can usually understand the point you’re making.
Here I’m completely baffled.
There are many things that are a “public health concern.” Obesity is a public health concern. No one is suggesting mandatory notification about obesity, because it’s not applicable to the issue of obesity.
So no – my argument does not hinge solely on the existence of a public health concern. It hinges on (a) a disease, that (b) is a public health concern because it’s (c) almost invariably fatal without treatment, (d) spread only by intimate contact, and (e) is incurable.
So why don’t we warn about influenza? Because it’s not nearly as fatal – although in raw numbers it kills more people, in proportion to the number of people who are infected, it’s substantially benign. It is curable. It spreads by casual contact.
Airborn pollution? Yes, a public health concern but as you point out, not fatal. Abd we do publish an “Air Quality Index,” to warn people about bad air days, and we do impose prophylactic measures on industry to prevent more pollution.
But how is this in any way related to the issue of disclosing your HIV+ status to a potential sexual partner?
Please make your argument plainly, because I confess I’m just not seeing it. It feels like you’re just throwing out things that vaguely sound like they might be related to the issue in a kind of orgy of distraction. But that’s not your usual style; I don’t I’ve ever seen you do that… so I conclude the problem is on my end. So… help me out. Restate your premise, start to finish, so that a sixth-garder might get it. Then maybe I can manage. 
Orgies are totally my style. 
Okay, as simply as I can put it, I don’t see HIV as being so horrifyingly dangerous that HIV victims should be subject to a rather intrusive law when nobody else is [subject to such a law]. Call it an equal protection argument, if you like.
That is not to say that HIV disclosure isn’t a good idea, or that I want to contract HIV; I just feel that this is an unwarranted imposition on the part of the government, since it doesn’t see fit to impose this way on other people.
i think my issue is that the crime ini the first sentence is an acual act, not the absence of an act, such as infomrinn someone of something. So it would seem to me that this law is almost requiring some sort of documentation that an act ws perfomred, such as a signed waiver from the partner in order to create a positive action that affirms the act. It sounds pretty silly, of course. I am just wondering how this would play out in reality.
OK. That’s what I tried to answer when I said that HIV was sui generis - any other disease doesn’t fit the parameters, so there’s no real way to say, “Why do we treat HIV this way and not _______?” The answer will always be some variant of, “Because _______ is different from HIV in the following ways:”
[ul]
[li]The way it is spread: intimate contact allows us to consider that exposing someone else to the disease, when you know you have it, is a deliberate act[/li][li]Seriousness – fatal if untreated; incurable; controllable only with hideously expensive medical cocktails[/li][li]Non-intrusiveness – I know you characterized the requirement as intrusive, but as distinguished from, say, requiring quarantine or a sign in front of your home warning visitors of the infectious disease within, it’s quite private to disclose only to the specific individual you are preparing to put at risk[/li][li]Most compelling, to me, is our general sense of individual rights and fair play: people wish to be able to give informed consent to risks; to expose someone to this risk without their knowledge runs counter to basic feelings – it’s instructive that even opponents of a legal solution agree that it’s the decent thing to do, an attitude that doesn’t much fit with other diseases[sup]*[/sup][/li][/ul]
My asterisk above is because I remember the case of Gene Tierney, an 1940s actress who was pregnant when she met “her biggest fan.” This fan was so eager to see Tierney that she sneaked out of her quarantined quarters – said quarantine being for rubella. Tierney caught rubella from this fan, and her daughter was born prematurely, with severe mental challenges, and partially blind – all birth defects due to rubella.
Most people hearing this story would, I think, agree that such conduct could be criminally sanctionable.
Psst … urban legend …
I had no idea this was a real incident. Reading the quoted paragraph, my memory siezed on Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side, which fictionalized the Gene Tierney incident and made it a motive for murder. I honestly had no idea it was based on an actual event before this.
Here’s a post from an earlier thread on the subject. Interestingly, several people there also wondered about it being a real event, which produced some cross-pollination with the Snopes message board and the following information:
So… yep. Horrifying. 
What point are you actually trying to make? That the HIV-notification law is unconstitutional? That it represents a prejudice against those with HIV and/or gay men? That it is impracticable to enforce? That it doesn’t conform to other laws passed in other eras regarding other communicable diseases?
I ask because you have been doing what looks like goalpost-moving as you flit from thesis to thesis.
Got bored before Page 3, did we, K_G?
Bricker, I suppose I can accept that rationale. I don’t agree with it, but I can accept it.
That’s what happens when you’re all over the place rhetorically, I suppose.
I assume you mean (as you in fact used) lower-case “equal protection” and are not contending that the law is violative of the Equal Protection Clause. That is, you are arguing the law represents a policy judgment you wouldn’t make (and that reason you wouldn’t make that judgment is because it is based on unsound assessments of relative danger and perhaps unreflecting ideas about HIV and sexuality).
I suppose a few reasons might account for this differing treatment of HIV from sufferers of other communicable diseases: not least include the lethality of infection (although much diminished these days), its incurability, and the visibility of its symptoms. I don’t think you’d quibble with any of these.
There are more problematic reasons than those as well, but ones which should probably enter the policy calculus nevertheless, albeit suitably discounted: chief among these is the general population’s particular anxiety over HIV.
Now, to some, indulging this anxiety is just pandering or demagoguery, or at least akin to that. On the other hand, we are a democracy rather than a technocracy because we think there is some policy wisdom to be gained by taking account the views of all the governed and not just the self-selected cadre of public health experts. Note that I am not disputing the genuine knowledgeability of them; but laws such as these touch upon community values as well as scientific truths. If people find HIV infection more dreadful than, say, herpes infection, I’m not sure it’s the place of the legislature to resist that preference-ordering by refusing to enact legislature that distinguishes the two.
Quarantines have been imposed for far less reason. Also, at this point, I’ll remind you of such as Typhoid Mary.
But are you sure it is the place of the legislature to enshrine that preference-ordering into law?
In recent years, the law has increasingly come to reflect the fact that people’s preferences, however widespread, are not generally rational bases for legislation.
Don’t want to be nitpicky, but it seems to me that the “rational basis test” is usually formulated a bit differently than the version you’re offering up here.
This thread has been operating under a false premise for the last four pages. You have a right to know about your partners HIV status. All you need to do is ask. Lying after being asked about your status is (likely) a crime.
Given that protection I don’t see the need for additional legislation. Especially a law that intrudes into the bedroom, and has such a risk for “he said she said” abuse. A law like this opens up HIV+ people to a very large increased risk of nuisance charges and makes it more likely that innocent people will go to jail. I don’t see that risk being necessary when “wear a condom, morons” is effective enough.
And what is that fale premise?
Yes, and it’s a crime that IPPF feels should not be a crime.
No one is talking about additional legislation. We’re discussing the stance of IPFF, which is “opposed to the current law.” And, naturally, we have branched out to discussing whether the current law is wise.
That people lack a legal right to know about their parents HIV status without mandatory disclosure laws. They do have one. All they need to do is ask.
They oppose mandatory disclosure. I see no evidence to suggest that they feel people should be able to lie to their partners about their HIV status, if directly asked.
So… your thesis is that current law requires people to tell the truth about being HIV+ if asked, but does not punish mere omission?
That’s not so.
Virginia:
Nothing there about having to tell the truth if asked, but getting a pass if not asked. The law requires disclosure, period.
Iowa:
Nothing there about having to tell the truth if asked, but getting a pass if not asked. The law requires disclosure, period – as an affirmative defense, no less.
Florida:
Nothing there either about having to tell the truth if asked, but getting a pass if not asked. The law requires disclosure, period.
Rather than my continue to post state laws, why don’t you tell me what law you were relying upon?
They say they oppose existing laws requiring disclosure. It seems that if your … um… extremely generous interpretation was correct, they’d make it plain.
Why do you believe they draw this particular distinction? And why, if they do draw this distinction, do you believe they don’t say anything about it?