[Vision2020] Kanay and the Law

[Andreas Schou]

Virtually every HIV infection not caused by infected clotting factor was
caused by an act that would be criminal under this law. Are we, as a state,
quite certain that we want to create a number of felons potentially equal to
the number of new HIV cases every year?

Kanay's actions would not have been criminal if Kanay had never gotten an
HIV test. Follow the logic through, and the only conclusion you can come to
is that, under the law, Kanay would be substantially better off if he had
never gotten an HIV test. This is not the case for his victims. The
transmissibility of HIV is directly correlated with the viral load in bodily
fluids: Kanay would have had a substantially higher risk of transmitting HIV
if he had never been tested and had not received multi-drug therapy for HIV.
Kanay would also have still been picking women up in local bars. The
consequence of this law is that it discourages irresponsible and negligent
behavior by promoting behavior that is orders of magnitude more
irresponsible and negligent.

If this were 1989 and HIV were a death sentence, or if this were 1982 and
the spread of HIV could be substantially reduced by dramatically increasing
penalties, then there would be an argument that this law was necessary. But
this is 2005, and HIV is no longer a death sentence. Most cases of HIV
contracted today will never progress to full-blown AIDS. Most HIV+
individuals infected today will live long lives and die of something other
than HIV.

This is not to say that what Kanay did was ethical. But, unfortunately,
'unethical' and 'illegal' cannot always be perfectly congruent.

-- ACS
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