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Knowingly exposing others to HIV will no longer be a felony in California


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From the article

" The measure also applies to those who give blood without telling the blood bank that they are HIV-positive. " Not disclosing your status to sexual partners could be a potential gray area, but how the heck can you allow people to knowingly donate HIV tainted blood?  I've been against the ban on gays or people who have had sex with gay men donating blood, but this just defies common sense.

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Ugh.

Obviously people who are HIV+ shouldn't be treated as criminals, they're not. But if you knowingly know you are positive and don't tell you partner or if you are donating blood and don't inform the person taking your blood that you are positive, fuck you. Do people not remember how much damage HIV has done to people. No matter how far medicine has come, HIV is still a life long illness and the medication is also expensive as all hell. I never taught I would see the day when somewhere says it's okay to knowingly possibly transmit HIV to someone, it's disgusting.

Edited by Azz
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Yeah. This is something I am disgusted at. I get that we shouldn't treat HIV+ people like criminals, but not punishing those who willing and knowingly spread a disease that puts a timer on someone's life is stupid. Sure that timer is longer, but it's still basically a death sentence. This doesn't have a cure. 

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California, why must you be so recklessly progressive? Do you not realize that this grants power to horrible people who could rape innocents and spread HIV like a plague? If they can't be charged with attempted murder for doing shit like that, it only proves how out of touch you are with reality.

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1 hour ago, Azz said:

Ugh.

Obviously people who are HIV+ shouldn't be treated as criminals, they're not. But if you knowingly know you are positive and don't tell you partner or if you are donating blood and don't inform the person taking your blood that you are positive, fuck you. Do people not remember how much damage HIV has done to people. No matter how far medicine has come, HIV is still a life long illness and the medication is also expensive as all hell. I never taught I would see the day when somewhere says it's okay to knowingly possibly transmit HIV to someone, it's disgusting.

People with HIV shouldn't be donating blood at all.

Having HIV isn't illegal, it's knowingly spreading it.  If you have tuberculosis, you aren't demonized for having it, but society has to isolate you until you are not a threat.  If someone knows they have TB, but goes on a plane and infects everybody, they are culpable for that.

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Sorry, but if you are knowingly exposing other people to something that could kill them you should face punishment.  I have sympathy for people who are HIV +, but they should know first hand why they need to tell their partner they have HIV and why they can't donate blood.  I know the medicine has come a long way, but HIV still kills people and knowingly giving it to another person is one of the most horrid acts someone could do to someone else.

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I'm against this. Knowingly spreading HIV+ bodily fluids show be a felony, because the intent is to cause damage, especially when donating blood.

Luckily, there's PREP nowadays, so if no condom is used, people may have that as a backup if they regularly take it. However, this still doesn't reduce the potential damage when donating blood. This can be detrimental, as we're living in a very dangerous social environment today, with the recent Las Vegas shooting as an example. Blood transfusions are becoming more important.

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1 minute ago, SullyMcGully said:

This is pretty crazy. In my experience, politicians generally don't do something this dumb unless there's money involved. But what organization would actually push for this?

I have no idea.  I've heard say that it's pandering to the gay population of San Francisco, but gay men have the most to lose by their prospective partners being able to lie to their face about their HIV status and facing a slap on the wrist and nothing else by knowingly infecting another.

They've also said that prostitutes were being over proportionately prosecuted for this law before.  Well, they should face a higher penalty, since they are getting money and spreading the disease.  I'm in favor of legalized prostitution, but that doesn't meant they should be able to spread STDs.  That's like saying you are anti-restaurant if you say you don't think restaurant owners should be able to sprinkle arsenic on your steak.

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For some perspective, it is not a felony in all states. Thirty-something states have laws regarding the transmission of HIV; in some it is a misdemeanor and in others it is a felony. In Alabama, for example, it is a misdemeanor. Iowa has the strictest laws and in Connecticut, as an another example, there are no laws at all. 

The full table is here.

This was the federal stance in 2010:

In July 2010, the White House announced a major change in its HIV/AIDS policy; the "National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States" stated that "the continued existence and enforcement of these types of laws [that criminalize HIV infection] run counter to scientific evidence about routes of HIV transmission and may undermine the public health goals of promoting HIV screening and treatment."

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6 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

That's like saying you are anti-restaurant if you say you don't think restaurant owners should be able to sprinkle arsenic on your steak.

I get the analogy, but one of those kills in minutes vs months or years, and it isn't the arsenic. I will admit AIDS is a painful death, moreso than arsenic, but there are better analogies.

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2 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Do you not realize that this grants power to horrible people who could rape innocents and spread HIV like a plague? If they can't be charged with attempted murder for doing shit like that, it only proves how out of touch you are with reality.

This statement doesnt make sense. Rape is still illegal, regardless of whether or not they have HIV

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Here's some more information about the reasoning behind the law:

Between 1988 and June 2014, there were 357 convictions in California for an HIV-specific felony that would have been downgraded by SB 239, according to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

The vast majority of convictions were in prostitution solicitation incidents in which it is unknown whether any contact beyond a conversation or an exchange of money was initiated, the researchers said. A sex worker can be charged with a felony if he or she is HIV-positive and solicits sex from another person without telling them of their infection, even if the two do not have sex, Wiener said.

Within that context, this makes more sense to me and it seems aimed to bring California more in line with federal guidelines.

2 hours ago, Maritisa said:

more reason to stay the fuck away from the west coast

You might like to check the chart I posted; in several eastern states knowingly transmitting HIV isn't a crime at all.

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18 minutes ago, DarkDestr0yer61 said:

This statement doesnt make sense. Rape is still illegal, regardless of whether or not they have HIV

In most places, being HIV positive and knowing it and raping a person is attempted murder. This law would make that go away, meaning that if their victim contracts it, there is no justice for them outside of a very rare rape conviction.

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8 minutes ago, Res said:

Here's some more information about the reasoning behind the law:

 

 

I see no problem with prosecuting prostitutes who knowingly conduct business while HIV positive.  I'm in favor of legalized prostitution.  Sending people to jail who knowingly taint their trade in such a way is one regulation that would be a benefit of legalization, this is a step backwards.  Prostitution should be a safe way for people to go have sex and people to sell their bodies, should they desire.  It shouldn't be the STD crap shoot.

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Getting tired of saying this all the time, but...

WTF California?

 

As for the other states, I think there's a big difference between not having it set as a felony, and downgrading the crime.  This is just typical behavior in California of taking a group of people who live unfortunate lives and blowing them up so they matter more than the general population.  Since when does being a victim excuse you from being a, for lack of better word, complete dick.  I mean its not so much the legislature that bothers me, as much as the wording as to why they're doing this.
 

“I’m of the mind that if you purposefully inflict another with a disease that alters their lifestyle the rest of their life, puts them on a regimen of medications to maintain any kind of normalcy, it should be a felony,” Anderson said during the floor debate. “It’s absolutely crazy to me that we should go light on this.”

Edited by Lushen
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1 hour ago, Hylian Air Force said:

In most places, being HIV positive and knowing it and raping a person is attempted murder. This law would make that go away, meaning that if their victim contracts it, there is no justice for them outside of a very rare rape conviction.

Okay. I'm not arguing that. What I am arguing is that you use the phrase "grants power to horrible people who could rape". Rape is still illegal regardless on how you look at it. That's the point I'm trying to argue.

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1 hour ago, Rezzy said:

I see no problem with prosecuting prostitutes who knowingly conduct business while HIV positive.  I'm in favor of legalized prostitution.  Sending people to jail who knowingly taint their trade in such a way is one regulation that would be a benefit of legalization, this is a step backwards.  Prostitution should be a safe way for people to go have sex and people to sell their bodies, should they desire.  It shouldn't be the STD crap shoot.

I agree; the better solution here might be legalizing prostitution, which would allow for less stigma to be attached to getting tested. 

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I heard about this the other day, I think it should be a felon, I don't see how anybody would benefit from this

and people on the left would say I'm bad for being pro life

 

and I kinda can't wait to see how TYT will try and defend this

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