The law and HIV transmission: help or hindrance?

Can the law be both the traditional embodiment of society's standards, sanc tioning morally culpable behaviour, and play a role in helping to build par tnerships to overcome an epidemic? This paper explores the conflict between two such roles, with particular reference to transmission offences. The pa per argues that anti-HIV laws on their own do not stop epidemics. In fact, criminal laws aimed at people with HIV can have a counter productive effect on public health, helping to send the epidemic underground. Prosecution of such offences is further complicated by the fact that, in some circumstanc es, people may knowingly consent to the risk of contracting a disease, whic h can be contracted through sexual intercourse or through sharing needles. The paper notes that those who work in HIV/AIDS can see that those who wilf ully infect others must be prosecuted, they also see the increase in stigma attached to people with HIV, and how the increase in stigma delays the day when the epidemic can be brought under control. For this reason, the paper concludes by advocating that such as actual infection and significant risk of transmission can be clarified.