Should people with AIDS be allowed to have children?

Lemming

Eoghan-psych wrote:

Eh, are you *actually* incapable of seeing the irrelevance of that?

This thread - if you care to actually read it - refers to those who *have* and are *aware* that they have HIV. It has nothing - as in 2-2 - to do with those who contract an illness while pregnant.

But thanks for trying to divert it into irrelevant hysteria.

My point is this Eoghan. You make hysterical bleeting cries about how HIV infected people should be prevented from reproduction - accidental or planned - because of the danger to the kids.

You then fail to see the comparable effects of other conditions and then claim that I'm being hysterical whenI point this out?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight ....

siggy time.

Eoghan-psych

Lemming wrote:

My point is this Eoghan. You make hysterical bleeting cries about how HIV infected people should be prevented from reproduction - accidental or planned - because of the danger to the kids.

You then fail to see the comparable effects of other conditions and then claim that I'm being hysterical whenI point this out?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight ....

siggy time.

I can certainly see the comparable effects of other conditions - which I have stated previously.

As stated previously, this thread relates specifically to those who are *aware* that they have HIV. As stated previously, this thread relates specifically to those who *set out* to have children. It does not deal with accidents, it does not deal with those who have not been diagnosed. It deals with those who knowingly and intentionally set out to place a child's life in danger.

If an adult *knows* they have HIV and sets about having sex with others who are unaware of their condition - a behaviour which they *know* puts those people at risk of contracting the virus - we see this as unacceptable. We see it as unconscionable. We see it as a heinous violation of basic decency.

Why should this not be extended to children? Why should we not see children as *at least* as valuable as adults? Why should it be acceptable to place a *child* at risk, when it is *not* acceptable to put an adult in the same situation?

Nevyn

Currently we have to laws stopping anyone from reproducing for any given reason. Once we pick one reason and make it law it sets a dangerous precent.
We only declar people unfit parents after the fact not before hand.

simu

Eoghan-psych wrote:

If an adult *knows* they have HIV and sets about having sex with others who are unaware of their condition - a behaviour which they *know* puts those people at risk of contracting the virus - we see this as unacceptable. We see it as unconscionable. We see it as a heinous violation of basic decency.

The issue of whether people being obliged to tell potential lovers that they are HIV positive is a separate one. It's possible for a HIV-positive woman to become pregnant by a man without putting him at risk through having unprotected sex - all you need is to get his sperm inside her body in another way!

Lemming

simu wrote:

The issue of whether people being obliged to tell potential lovers that they are HIV positive is a separate one. It's possible for a HIV-positive woman to become pregnant by a man without putting him at risk through having unprotected sex - all you need is to get his sperm inside her body in another way!

Indeed. And in any case as already pointed out, people who deliberately infect others withuot their knowledge are looking at jail time. I seem to recall a man of african origin being jailed for it some time ago. He had sex with several women, knowing full well of what he did and didn't inform them before during or after.

Eoghan-psych

Lemming wrote:

Indeed. And in any case as already pointed out, people who deliberately infect others withuot their knowledge are looking at jail time. I seem to recall a man of african origin being jailed for it some time ago. He had sex with several women, knowing full well of what he did and didn't inform them before during or after.

Why shouldn't this apply to children?

Why should it illegal to infect an adult, but not illegal to infect a child?

Lemming

Eoghan-psych wrote:

Why shouldn't this apply to children?

Why should it illegal to infect an adult, but not illegal to infect a child?

Because that would probably involve paedophilia. And we have laws for that already .... :rolleyes:

simu

Eoghan-psych wrote:

Why shouldn't this apply to children?

Why should it illegal to infect an adult, but not illegal to infect a child?

They're taking all possible precautions against infecting the child but there's always a risk factor. This is very different to, say, injecting a child with HIV which would be a closer analogy with sleeping with a person without protection and without telling them you are HIV positive.

Eoghan-psych

simu wrote:

They're taking all possible precautions against infecting the child but there's always a risk factor. This is very different to, say, injecting a child with HIV which would be a closer analogy with sleeping with a person without protection and without telling them you are HIV positive.

They may well indeed be taking precautions, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are *deliberately* and *knowingly* inflicting that risk.

simu

Eoghan-psych wrote:

They may well indeed be taking precautions, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are *deliberately* and *knowingly* inflicting that risk.

Well then, lets all stop reproducing - preganancy is never risk free!

Eoghan-psych

simu wrote:

Well then, lets all stop reproducing - preganancy is never risk free!

I don't think the qualitative difference between the two sorts of risk - the first kind being that risk inherent in all births due to fundamental biology, the second being that risk deliberately inflicted on the child by its parents - really needs to be explained to you.

pretty-in-pink

Exactly, and thats the point: should people who know they have it, and know the child could contract it- and in all probability that they will give it to their partner (IVF is expensive, and so not the most likley solutuion people would come to, particularily those who would put their own children at a delibrate risk) be allowed to have children?

I really don't think so, it's unfair and selfish

Lemming

simu wrote:

Well then, lets all stop reproducing - preganancy is never risk free!

Yes, pregnancy is actually quite a risky thing, even though it may be "the most natural thing in the world" to quote a cliche. Nature is "natural", and nature is not kind. One would do well to remember that little fact Eoghan.

Now, lets see.... I think the rest of this thread goes something like this:

*cue empty room with two people in it:

---

Person A: "WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!"
Person B: ??
Person A: "THEY COULD BE TRAUMATISED BY WHAT WE SAY OR DO!! PLEASE THINK OF THEM!"
Person B: *looks around the room*
Person A: "PLEASE WHY WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!"
Person B: Eh .... pers ..
Person A: "THE POOR POOR CHILDREN!!"
Person B: OI!!!!
Person A: "W ... "
Person B: In case you hadn't noticed, there aren't any children in the room.
Person A: Oh ....

simu

Eoghan-psych wrote:

I don't think the qualitative difference between the two sorts of risk - the first kind being that risk inherent in all births due to fundamental biology, the second being that risk deliberately inflicted on the child by its parents - really needs to be explained to you.

What about the risks inherent in both parents being carriers of some genetically transmitted disease?

Lemming

naughty_girl wrote:

Exactly, and thats the point: should people who know they have it, and know the child could contract it- and in all probability that they will give it to their partner (IVF is expensive, and so not the most likley solutuion people would come to, particularily those who would put their own children at a delibrate risk) be allowed to have children?

I really don't think so, it's unfair and selfish

Should someone who has a family history or severe hereditary illness - we'll say a particularly nasty form of cancer be allowed to have children?

By your logic it's "unfair and selfish" also.

Eoghan-psych

Lemming wrote:

Yes, pregnancy is actually quite a risky thing, even though it may be "the most natural thing in the world" to quote a cliche. Nature is "natural", and nature is not kind. One would do well to remember that little fact Eoghan.

I have no problem remembering that fact.

You seem to be arguing that it is "natural" for a parent to inflict a risk of HIV infection on a child. It isn't. It is natural for a baby to be a frail organism - that is inescapble. HIV infection is, however, a wholly escapable risk.

goin'_to_the_PS

i don't think they should because of the chance of passing it on to there child

simu

naughty_girl wrote:

(IVF is expensive, and so not the most likley solutuion people would come to, particularily those who would put their own children at a delibrate risk)

You wouldn't necessarily need IVF. Man jerks off into cup. Woman pours contents inside her! A bit gross but it would do!

Eoghan-psych

Lemming wrote:

Should someone who has a family history or severe hereditary illness - we'll say a particularly nasty form of cancer be allowed to have children?

By your logic it's "unfair and selfish" also.

If that condition is genotypic - like Tay Sachs - then absolutely.

Macmorris

simu wrote:

They're taking all possible precautions against infecting the child but there's always a risk factor.

Even if there was no risk of passing on the disease, there's still a high risk that the child would grow up an orphan, and in the case of a continent like Africa, that can mean living in extreme poverty.

Eoghan-psych

Macmorris wrote:

Even if there was no risk of passing on the disease, there's still a high risk that the child would grow up an orphan, and in the case of a continent like Africa, that can mean living in extreme poverty.

Which in turn leads to a higher risk of contractin the virus independently, thus perpetuating the whole cycle.

simu

Macmorris wrote:

Even if there was no risk of passing on the disease, there's still a high risk that the child would grow up an orphan, and in the case of a continent like Africa, that can mean living in extreme poverty.

We're talking about the develpoed world here. The idea of forbidding HIV-positive people in third world countries with little access to medical facilities and contraception from having kids is totally unworkable.

Macmorris

simu wrote:

We're talking about the develpoed world here.

It would be better if no child grew up an orphan, either in the developed or the developing world. Where it can be prevented, it should.

The idea of forbidding HIV-positive people in third world countries with little access to medical facilities and contraception from having kids is totally unworkable.

Medical treatment could be withheld until the Aids sufferer agreed to be sterilised. It may seem callous but it will prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering in the long term.

DrIndy

Macmorris wrote:

Medical treatment could be withheld until the Aids sufferer agreed to be sterilised. It may seem callous but it will prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering in the long term.

As I stated before, sterilisation involves closing off the vas deferens that connect your testicles to your penis, in women it is the fallopian tubes between the ovaries and womb.

This will do NOTHING to prevent the spread of HIV between couples as it is a virus.

Do you not think forcing people to be sterilised is not callous?

Of note, although HIV transmission rates from men to women is fairly high, transmission rates from women to men is actually very low. It takes considerable effort for a man to become infected from a HIV positive woman.

The issue remains, most pregnancies are unplanned. (ie - drunken night and forgot to use condoms) As such, in unplanned pregnancies there is no deliberate act to create a new life, hence the arguments that it is done for a selfish purpose are immaterial.

Anti-HIV drugs reduce the rate of transmission from mother to baby to less than 2%. Thus although not 100% safe, this greatly reduces the infection rate.

HIV positive people need to be counselled on the risks of transmission to any future children and encouraged to use contraception. If a pregnancy occurs, the baby needs to be protected. However mass sterilisation brings up memories of 1939-1945.

Fysh

Macmorris wrote:

It would be better if no child grew up an orphan, either in the developed or the developing world. Where it can be prevented, it should.

It would be better if the world were variously different to how it is. That in and of itself does not make an effort to make a change automatically right or good.

Macmorris wrote:

Medical treatment could be withheld until the Aids sufferer agreed to be sterilised. It may seem callous but it will prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering in the long term.

Unnecessary to who?!? You're seriously saying that medicine should be restricted to those who refuse to have part of their body surgically altered in what amounts to an irreversible operation? Extending this (and yes, it will be extended - there's absolutely no way that the notion can be kept as absolutely unique, so there will be other cases) why not force people subsceptible to hereditary illnesses to be sterilised before offering treatment? It fits in with protecting the child's health by making sure no defective child can be born.

(And before we come back to it again - hereditary illnesses may not be spread virally, but frankly the number of people born with hereditary illnesses far outweights, to my knowledge, the number of people born in the developed world to parents who knew they were HIV positive and therefore should be a greater focus of our concern.)

Another question this opens up (may have been raised before) - modern medical technology allows us to predict if children will be prone to illness or disabled. Why would parents who find out, a few months into the pregnancy, that their child is going to be disabled or, say, a Down Syndrome child, deserve different treatment? Or do they deserve different treatment?

Magical Pete

Eoghan-psych wrote:

There is no difference in reality. 5% chance of transmitting HIV is unacceptable. When medical technolgy gets that down to 0%, fine. Until then, those infected with the virus should not be allowed to reproduce.

Ok.. You've just completely lost me. There is a very fundamental difference, most notably in that one is a loving, caring family and the other is the precise opposite. Parents have perfect knowledge that the disease may be passed on, and they're the ones who must live with that decision whatever way it goes. Medical technology can go and *expletive*, with a 5% (i say 5% because i couldn't find a source that says 2% on Google, not because i dispute DrIndy's numbers) chance of infection both the decision and the consequences lie in the hands of the parents, and that means nobody else.

What kind of "perfectly loving parent" deliberately and knowingly puts their child's life in danger?

One who has taken a calculated risk. What's more, castration is extremely shortsighted if not plain moronic. If there were to be a way for the transmission rate to be taken down to 0%, a rate you say would be acceptable - What use is that if you've been castrated? You've already lost the chance to have kids, so the risk of transmission could -100% and it'd still be useless.
And forget that you don't really have any moral or legal ground in cutting off someone else's bodyparts, what would sterilisation even accomplish? HIV+ people would still carry a risk of transmission. Hell, i've got the solution! Let's kill the ****ers.. Now THAT would sort the whole mess out, eh?
I'm obviously joking, but castration is like using a hammer to kill a mouse, it's needlessly damaging, and the chances are you'll just end up smashing yourself in the foot and not accomplishing anything. Sore and stupid

I ask again - it is *not* acceptable for someone to deliberately put their *partner* at risk of catching HIV, so why should it be acceptable for someone to deliberately put a *child* in the same position?

Are you saying it is unacceptable for two people to sleep together if one of them is HIV+, even if both of them know about it? I would believe not, but it certainly reads that way. Anyway, given that it actually -is- acceptable for someone to put another person at risk as long as that person accepts and knows of that risk, you don't really have much of point. You can't ask the unborn child if s/he minds being possibly infected. As i said, it sounds crude, but it's a calculated risk, and it's one that the parents have the right to take, and nobody else.

Short on time, so i'll end with this:
Note that most parents, if not all, are not willing to bring a child into the world with a possibility of such an awful disease being inflicted on them. DrIndy says fewer than 2% of parents will pass HIV on, well i'd say fewer than 2% of those parents would even risk it. But if that 2% have the knowledge, the desire, the (ahem) capability and the maturity to have a baby, then they are allowed, of that there is no question.

Eoghan-psych

Magical Pete wrote:

Are you saying it is unacceptable for two people to sleep together if one of them is HIV+, even if both of them know about it? I would believe not, but it certainly reads that way. Anyway, given that it actually -is- acceptable for someone to put another person at risk as long as that person accepts and knows of that risk, you don't really have much of point. You can't ask the unborn child if s/he minds being possibly infected. As i said, it sounds crude, but it's a calculated risk, and it's one that the parents have the right to take, and nobody else.

I was referring to those who are aware that they are HIV+ but do not inform their partners. We see that as unacceptable.

Precisely *because* the child can't be asked, there should *be* no child. We don't see it as acceptable for an *adult* who isn't asked, why should it be different for a child?

Lemming

Eoghan-psych wrote:

I was referring to those who are aware that they are HIV+ but do not inform their partners. We see that as unacceptable.

Precisely *because* the child can't be asked, there should *be* no child. We don't see it as acceptable for an *adult* who isn't asked, why should it be different for a child?

Jesus H f*cking christ. Do you people not read?

As has been stated before on several occasions, people who are aware that they are HIV+ and do not inform their partners are liable for prosecution as it stands. It's already governed under existing legislation.

If a pregnancy results you are then into the area of abortion.

Further, to infect a child (as opposed to unborn - there is a difference) sexually would fall under paedophilia - also governed under existing legislation.

Please, please quit with the hysterical bandwagon crap already.

Eoghan-psych

Lemming wrote:

Jesus H f*cking christ. Do you people not read?

As has been stated before on several occasions, people who are aware that they are HIV+ and do not inform their partners are liable for prosecution as it stands. It's already governed under existing legislation.

If a pregnancy results you are then into the area of abortion.

Please, please quit with the hysterical bandwagon crap already.

There is nothing hysterical about. I have said at least 4 times that I *know* it is illegal for someone to sleep with an uninfected partner and not inform them - read the thread.

This is regarded as unacceptable because the person is being put at risk unaware of the danger.

What I have argued here, repeatedly, is that the same criteria should be applied to children.

I am still waiting for someone to tell me why it is illegal to place an *adult* at risk but not a child.

Fysh

Eoghan-psych wrote:

There is nothing hysterical about. I have said at least 4 times that I *know* it is illegal for someone to sleep with an uninfected partner and not inform them - read the thread.

This is regarded as unacceptable because the person is being put at risk unaware of the danger.

What I have argued here, repeatedly, is that the same criteria should be applied to children.

I am still waiting for someone to tell me why it is illegal to place an *adult* at risk but not a child.

So what you're asking for is for children born to parents where one or both parents are HIV positive to have the right to prosecute their parents for giving them HIV? And you don't see how that opens up the possibility of kids suing their parents for giving them inherited diseases? (And yes, you can stop with the "but it can be spread" thing - either you're concerned about the welfare of the child, or you're concerned about the welfare of the population at large. You can't just hop from one to the other depending on which point you're responding to).

How can you compare someone knowingly infecting an unaware sexual partner with HIV, to people knowingly having a child when one or both of them are HIV positive? Are you genuinely suggesting that the motives are the same? That the desire to have and care for a child is being completely surpressed and replaced by the urge to spread the virus?

Children don't have the right you seem to be demanding that they have for *any* condition they get from their parents, regardless of whether it's known about or not. Personally I'd encourage education for people considering it and, if the disease looks like it most likely will be passed on, encourage them to adopt rather than have their own child. But you seem to be demanding that people be forbidden from breeding on the assumption that only someone meeting your stringent definition of "health" can possibly have a happy life. Where does that assumption take account of people with sensory impairments or mental disabilities? (Again, don't switch to the "but it can be spread" tack - you're clearly arguing from the child's individual rights angle so stick to it).

Ultimately, given that the child's life is essentially created by the parents, I don't think there should be mandatory intervention unless a medical history guarantees with 100% certainty that the child will have a condition which renders it unable to have any quality of life whatsoever. The argument about what constitutes any quality of life is a messy one, but the requirement for 100% guaranteed infection is not.