Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:56:10.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Should we use the criminal law to punish HIV transmission?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Udo Schüklenk
Udo Schüklenk*
Affiliation:
Queen’s UniversityDepartment of Philosophy, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Legislators around the world are grappling with the question of whether or not the criminal law should be deployed in order to punish HIV transmission that is the result of voluntary sexual encounters between competent, consenting adults. A few years ago, when I was working in South Africa, that country’s Law Reform Commission proposed to declare HIV transmissions that are the result of voluntary sexual encounters among competent consenting adults a criminal offence that ought to fall under the category of rape (Schüklenk, 2003). Rape and voluntariness do not go too well together, so – not being a lawyer – I was surprised about the seemingly otherworldly machinations of legal minds in the context of HIV/AIDS. Matthew Weait points out in his book Intimacy and Responsibility: The Criminalisation of HIV Transmission that many liberal democracies have made HIV transmission a criminal offence, among these Canada, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and many others. In most countries, HIV infected people who demonstrably knew about their infection have been successfully prosecuted for transmitting HIV to their sexual partners.

Type
Review essay
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , September 2008 , pp. 277 - 284
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Afao (2007) Position Paper: Criminal Prosecution of HIV Transmission. Newtown: AFAO, 28 March 2007, p. 3.Google Scholar
Bhaskaran, K., Hamoudah, O., Sannes, M., Boufassa, F., Johnson, A. M., Lambert, P. C. and Porter, K. (2008) ‘Changes in the Risk of Death After HIV Seroconversion Compared with Mortality in the General Population’, Journal of the American Medical Association 300(1): 51–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (2008) Criminal Law www.aidslaw.ca/EN/issues/criminal_law.htm [last accessed 2 July 2008].Google Scholar
Deutsche AIDS Hilfe (DAH) (2008) Personal communication Dr Karl Lemmen, 8 July 2008.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. (2006) ‘HIV Sufferers Have a Responsibility’ in Parmet, W. and Illingworth, P. (eds) Ethical Health Care. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 234–244.Google Scholar
Feinberg, J. (1984) The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law: Harm to Others. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hare, R. M. (1981) Moral Thinking: Its Level, Methods and Point. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1964) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Pillay, D., Rambaut, A., Geretti, A. M. and Brown, A. J. L. (2007) ‘HIV phylogenetics’, British Medical Journal 335: 460–461.Google Scholar
Schüklenk, U. (2003) ‘Unsafe sex isn’t rape’, Business Day (RSA) 23 January 2003.Google Scholar
Schüklenk, U. (2009, in press) ‘AIDS’, in Kuhse, H. and Singer, P. (eds) Companion to Bioethics (2nd edition). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schüklenk, U., Stein, E., Kerin, J. and Byne, W. (1997) ‘The Ethics of Genetic Research on Sexual Orientation’, Hastings Center Report 27(4): 6–13.Google Scholar
Syms, S. (2008) ‘Criminalizing HIV May Only Fuel the Epidemic’, Xtra.ca 17 July 2008. www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1 & STORY_ID=5153 & PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=7 [last accessed 18 July 2008].Google Scholar