Ethics and the Language of AIDS (From The Meaning of AIDS: Implications for Medical Science, Clinical Practice, and Public Health Policy, P 30-41, 1989, Eric T Juengst and Barbara A Koenig, eds. -- NCJ-123590)

• NCJ Number: 123594
• Author(s): J W Ross
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: Praeger Publishers
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

AIDS has been permitted and encouraged to carry a moral meaning that has divided and polarized the community to obstruct positive treatment and preventive responses.

Abstract

The moral metaphors associated with AIDS include crime, sin, war, and the divided polity. All undermine a sense of community and caring for one another. The ethic that should dictate behavior and attitudes toward AIDS is that one ought not harm innocent persons. In the AIDS crisis, however, we are all innocent. Those who carry the HIV virus need to care about and protect those who do not; those who have not been exposed need to care for and protect those who have. It is not that some of "us" need protection and some of "them" need to sacrifice their rights; that some belong to death and others embrace life; that some are righteous and others are sinners; that some are criminals and others their victims; and that some may be cast out of the community while others are sheltered. Those who have been exposed to AIDS have enough to bear without the additional burden of moral metaphors that deprive them of needed love and support from the community. 46 notes.