Conclusions

The criminalisation of people who have transmitted HIV is both a moral and a practical minefield. The very fact that the sentences received by the individuals listed above vary from a small fine to life in prison reflects just how difficult it can be to legislate and deliver a ruling on an issue where individual viewpoints, emotions, stigma and the good of public health are so inextricably mixed. No matter what legal system is in use, there is no easy "one size fits all" law that can make it any simpler either. Make the prosecution of people who have passed on HIV illegal altogether (as they have done in places such as Thailand) and you risk a public outcry by allowing people to get away with serious cases of deliberate and malicious transmission. Introduce specific laws, and you risk a cascade of litigation brought about by angry lovers, and thus an increase the number of people afraid to be tested. If any progress is to be made on the issue therefore, a very careful international examination of the benefits and pitfalls of criminalisation needs to take place.

What should ultimately be remembered however is that HIV is an infectious disease - every single person who is accused of sexually transmitting the virus by whatever means, will at some point have been the victim of a 'transmitter' themselves. People do not ask to become infected with HIV; they acquire it because replication and infection is the primary objective of any virus. The real criminal is perhaps not the human host therefore, but HIV itself.