This week I learned a lot from the panel discussion on wednesday. The questions and answers were all great and very knowledgeable. It really showed me how HIV/AIDS can really affect an individual and how serious it is. From the panel discussion I took away that the medications used to help treat HIV/AIDS have serious side affects, and that these side affects can affect a person for years. Also, I learned that some people do not really experience any side affects, while others do, and still while others experience serious side affects. Also, I learned that HIV/AIDS does not only affect your body, your family, but also were you live and your job. In one situation an individual felt that it was necessary to move from one town to a new town because her hometown was small and living in a town such as that could make life hard with HIV/AIDS. Also, certain jobs had to be left because what there occupation was, put other people in risk, or that HIV/AIDS required them to take up another occupation. Attending the panel was great, moreover, it has influence my topic this week due to my experience at the panel and what I learned.
Therefore, todays topic is HIV and Sex: The Law. Is someone living with HIV/AIDS required to tell there about to be sex partner that they are infected and that having unprotected sex with them puts them in great risk? Is the law involved in a situation such as this? Well to answer this question there are about 24 to 27 states now in the United States that will criminalize certain behaviors when people with HIV engage in them (Sex, Privacy and the Law when You;re HIV-Positive, 2007). Furthermore, every state has a law that has "been in existence since the early 1930s, that will make it a crime if someone with a communicable or infectious disease exposes another person to that disease" (Sex, Privacy and the Law when You;re HIV-Positive, 2007). So in half of the states of the United States an individual who has HIV/AIDS can be prosecuted if they have unprotected sex with another individual, but do not disclose them to there status. According to THE BODY (2000), "at the point when you decide to have sex the disclosure question is no longer solely up to you and your conscience. At that point, your decisions may have legal ramifications. Failing to disclose your HIV status to your partner may make you vulnerable to criminal prosecution or to being sued by your sexual partner."
Furthermore, in Sweden it is a law that a person with HIV/AIDS must tell their sex partner that they are in affected. Also, it is required by law that an individual with HIV/AIDS must seek medical attention, and if another individual witnesses someone with an infectious disease not participating in medical attention, then by law that individual must notify authorities (Problematizations and Path Dependency: HIV/AIDS Policies in Denmark and Sweden, 2007).
Sources
THE BODY. (2000). Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.thebody.com/content/art32643.html
Problematizations and Path Dependency: HIV/AIDS Policies in Denmark and Sweden. (2007). Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/pmc/articles/PMC1712379/
Sex, Privacy and the Law When You're HIV-Positive. (2007). Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.thebody.com/content/art53797.html
Jaime, this is the fact that laws have been placed for situations such as this. Its amazing how far they date back but inevitably it has helped us to punish those who push the envelope by spreading HIV or any other disease rampantly. The panels, I'm assuming are very informative, I wish I lived closer so I could attend. Its a great thing when students take away from people who have actually lived the experience.
ReplyDeleteYou can go to jail for attempted murder and if while you are in jail the person dies from the complications of their disease, the charge can be changed to murder.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely difficult to get up the courage to tell someone you care about, but don't know really all that well, that you are HIV positive. The ladies have been rejected many times and it hurts when someone turns and walks away. That is why most believe it is best to tell the at the very beginning before you develop deep attachments. Then it doesn't hurt as much.
I am surprised that Sweden has such a strict law about medical attention and that someone can out another person for not getting medical attention. That seems like an invasion of personal confidentiality. I could see them telling the law if a person is not telling others about their HIV status, but not getting medical care is a personal decision. Does Sweden have universal health care that will pay for all the medications?