“This is not a sickness that has been caused by industry or government negligence. Plain and simple, it is caused through indiscriminate, amoral sexuality. I have not heard one member of our government publicly announcing that the government is not responsible for people’s moral behaviour or the lack thereof. HIV and Aids are now being asked to be grouped with sicknesses such as cancer and tuberculosis. Those are not caused through lack of morals. I recommend that the government become the first country in the world to adopt a national policy that says that only those people who can prove that they contracted HIV/Aids through a serious long-term monogamous relationship will be treated at the government’s expense. I further recommend that the parents of children born with HIV/Aids be convicted of criminal negligence and be sentenced to life imprisonment. To those who are living with HIV/Aids I say you live by the sword and so shall you die by the sword.” —The Star (South Africa)

When you live in a liberal land — a place where you’re free to read PervScan, watch bukkake videos on the net, hold hands with members of the same sex, become a porn star and be proud of it — it’s always tonic to remember that there are places and peoples with a slightly different view of the world. This guy here in Africa thinks that AIDS is the result of amoral behavior. Ok, well, if you equate monogamy with morality and promiscuity with depravity, then he’s basically right. “Indiscriminate” sexual behavior certainly perpetuates HIV. Note, however, that this “indiscriminate” behavior ought to include not just promiscuity but rape, exchange of body fluids with needle users, and other sorts of unsafe sex. Hopefully the writer would make exceptions to his “die by the sword” edict for those who contracted AIDS without ever living by the sword in the first place. There has been a lot of talk about African men raping virgins because they mistakenly believe that sleeping with a virgin can cure them of AIDS. Certainly you couldn’t then accuse the virgins of living by the sword?

Moral differences aside, the guy does propose one arresting idea — indicting parents who give birth to children with HIV. Naturally this is the sort of idea to make people start crying about eugenics and Nazis, but think about it. Should people with HIV and/or AIDS be allowed to have children? Is it abuse or criminal negligence to get pregnant when you know you’ll be afflicting the child with a hitherto incurable disease? Then again, life itself is an incurable disease. Our mothers all give birth to children whom they know will die. It’s just that some children are given a fighting chance at a “normal” life, whilst others are doomed from the start. So should you impugn those parents whose children are inevitably doomed? But then again, how could you possibly judge who is or isn’t doomed? Hell, by the standards of the time, Hellen Keller probably would have been thought doomed, and yet she turned out pretty well. In the future, will there be crack-baby geniuses? Kids with AIDS who make such monumental contributions to society that their short lives will retroactively justify their parents’ heedlessness?

Tough questions — but don’t be surprised if, sooner or later, some country enacts a law along the lines proposed by the writer. If a girl can be stoned to death in modern-day Iran for adultery, it’s only a matter of time before some equally conservative country kills the parent of an HIV-addled baby.

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