THE PROBLEM WITH MAKING AIDS COMFORTABLE - FEDERAL-POLICY MAKING AND THE RHETORIC OF INNOCENCE

This essay presents a narrative of U.S. AIDS policy which highlights t he ways that people with AIDS (PWAs) have been categorized throughout the epidemic. I argue that PWAs have been broadly categorized as eithe r ''innocent'' or ''guilty'' in the public discourse about AIDS, and t hat these distinctions have greatly influenced the way that policies a re designed and justified, An examination of the Ryan White CARE Act o f 1990 shows that policy rationales of lawmakers overwhelmingly relied on rhetoric which focused on the most sympathetic PWAs: ''innocent'' women and children. While this rhetorical strategy helped gain passage of the law, it effectively shut out the concerns of the majority of P WAs who fell into less sympathetic categories and resulted in policy d ecisions which often work against the stated goals of lawmakers.