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From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Intentional Transmission of AIDS
Keywords: criminal recklessness
Message-ID: <39717@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 90 20:59:33 GMT
References: <38625@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <39235@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <39582@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <39630@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Note:	Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening.  Permission granted for
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In article <39630@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> bob@ozdaltx.UUCP (Bob Culmer) writes:
>In article <39582@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, li40163@prism.gatech.edu (M. AXFORD) writes:
>> 
>>      You did not read the first words of my post.  Yes I do believe that
>> people should be responsible for their own behavior.  That is, in part,
>> my point -- someone who knowingly spreads AIDS is certainly not 
>> acting responsibly! 
>
>On the contrary, I did read them - and still come away with the
>impression that you go too far in suggesting that this sort of
>responsible behavior be legislated. 
>
>I think the law needs to deal with violations of rights, not the
>promotion of good and responsible things.
>

Laws currently on the books deal with both the violations of rights
(e.g. the rape/murder laws) and "good and responsible" things e.g. the
tort laws.  I'm surprised no-one has remarked that attempted
transmission of HIV has already been (I think successfully) prosecuted
under these existing laws vis. it was called attempted murder when a
person known by himself and others to be HIV+ deliberately bit someone.

Similarly I think that tort laws have been applied in cases in which a
person either knows or recklessly ignores the possibility that (s)he may be
HIV+ and deliberately engages in behavior which may transmit HIV.  Some
of these cases (like most tort cases) seem reasonable to me, others seem
ridiculous, depending on the degree of knowledge/responsibility of the
complaint.  Generally I think that a jury or judge would be expected to decide
on the facts of the case.

Anyway the point is that deliberate transmission of HIV is probably
already illegal, collection of relevant evidence is already legal (e.g.
blood samples are routinely subpeonaed for paternity/rape cases) and I
doubt that HIV is sufficiently "new" in the legal sense to warrant new
laws, unless it should be decided that HIV is sufficiently different
from, say, asbestos or other hazards to be explicitly exempted from the
laws which seem previously to have been applied.  I do not hold that
opinion.

Disclaimer:  I am not, never have been, and never want to be a lawyer.
These are the random meanderings of someone who occasionally reads
newspapers.  He agrees that to deal with HIV we need

>let's get more explicit educational materials.  And, of course more
tolerant people, though that may be harder still.

--
Rolfe G. Petschek			Petschek@cwru.bitnet
Associate Professor of Physics		rgp@po.cwru.edu
Case Western Reserve University		(216)368-4035 
Cleveland Oh 44106-2623