Monday, September 13, 2010

Discussion: HIV Transmission

I want to try just throwing out a question and having people discuss what they think, without any input from me. I might use points from the discussion in a seperate post, but I plan to not comment on any "Discussion" threads directly.

Question: Should it be a punishable crime to knowingly have unprotected sex with others if you have HIV, or perhaps some other sexually communicable disease?

3 comments:

  1. If we have learned one thing, it is that,
    with venereal diseases

    criminalization in the long run, does not avoid the crime

    well if the criminal would pay
    they are two persons in this type of crime

    if the infected one
    does not use any kind of protection

    i think the merite of catching the disease goes to.....both

    two criminals that deserve something

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, unless the other person has given consent.

    You may as well be secretly injecting them with heroin.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you'd have to prove the infected person deliberately deceived their partner and that's going to be a hard case to make. If the other person were infected and unwittingly infected someone else before finding out they themselves were infected, to what extent would they be liable for having unprotected sex with someone who was infected and passing the disease on? My first instinct was to say, yes, it should be a crime, and I think in certain cases it could be prosecutable, but unless they pass the virus on in the course of committing rape, I'm just not sure. (Wasn't there a Law & Order episode of this scenario? Did Jack get a conviction?)

    ReplyDelete

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