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If you have AIDS or HIV, you know it, the risks have been explained by a Doctor and you have sex or share a needle with someone without warning them.....

Is that attempted murder ???

Same question if you have less serious STDs or other blood transmittable infections, know about them, know you could pass them on and have sex or share a needle with someone without warning them..........

Is thats Assault, ABH ( Actually Bodily Harm ) ???



Seems to me it should be......... but how does the person injected this way prove they weren't warned of the risk ? How could you prove beyond resonable doubt to gain a conviction ?

I agree, such things should be classed as attempted murder and ABH...proving it in court though as you point out would be 1v1, and i have no answer or suggestion for that.

if you dont tell someone then yes to both

about proving it i doubt most educated people if told would risk it unless there are married to the person for instance or something like that

MEZZANINE wrote:[spoiler]If you have AIDS or HIV, you know it, the risks have been explained by a Doctor and you have sex or share a needle with someone without warning them.....

Is that attempted murder ???

Same question if you have less serious STDs or other blood transmittable infections, know about them, know you could pass them on and have sex or share a needle with someone without warning them..........

Is thats Assault, ABH ( Actually Bodily Harm ) ???



Seems to me it should be......... but how does the person injected this way prove they weren't warned of the risk ? How could you prove beyond resonable doubt to gain a conviction ?[/spoiler]

There is that (infecting), and then there is injecting someone with HIV-positive blood.


Need to be aware, Mezz, of the difference between 'exposing' and 'infecting'. Infecting being the person actually 'catching' HIV, and exposing being bringing the person in contact with HIV-positive and potentially infectious material. Also, it is impossible to tell when someone who is regularly exposed to HIV-positive material, 'finally' contracts HIV, which source material caused the actual infection.

Exposure is a sad thing, but cannot possibly be construed as attempted murder; infecting someone, on the other hand, requires pre-crime testing (to make sure the person has no HIV to begin with) and post-crime testing (to make sure the person contracted HIV). Surely infecting someone requires kidnapping them, to both prevent them from contracting HIV through other means and to make sure the person actually contracts it.

You see the point. Since you cannot ever prove (without having a case for kidnapping and solitary confinement) who infected the person with HIV, neither infecting nor exposing someone to HIV can be punishable by law.
If you were to make a case against exposure, a line of defence could be that people who are in the contagious stages of pneumonia, measles or other diseases are in fact doing the same thing, and should be punished as severely. Since that cannot be made practice, only an advisory 'law' (check your sex partner's history, and cooperate with your sex partner in checking your history) can be put in effect. That law, by the way, is called decorum.



[spoiler]Anyway, anyone who goes to a sex party to inject (using syringes, etc) partygoers with HIV-positive blood is insane and should be institutionalised. There is, after all, only one reason WHY they would do such a thing, i.e. to make another one like them. Zombie-style.[/spoiler] Yes, I have a steady supply of wine and am actually being mellow and reasonable.


@CC: I consider myself relatively educated (university) and I have partaken in 1 game of Russian Roulette. I have been present at a few more of these events and made quite a bit of money betting on it, but since there are people who are both educated and doing this kind of thing (not even going to mention bungee jumping, paragliding, or a commercial 'space' flight), nothing can be said about their behaviour in their sex life. Most people are drunk when having sex anyway.

Removed

@ Kit, I wasnt aware it was already on the statute books, do you know of any proven cases ?

@ Princess Jules, I meant exposure hence the why I said 'Attempted Murder'. Actual deliberate infection of something likes Aids IMO should be Murder, but apart from the proof aspect, there is also the fact the person infected may not die for many years, how do you convict for murder while the victim is still alive ? Do you say 'You will have murdered me when I finally die, if I dont die of an unrelated illness or accident or other means first' ?

I limited the discussion to sexual and blood transmitted infections because for an informed person the risks can be easily mitigated against, airborn infections are pretty much uncontrollable unless a Dr quarantines the patient, and even then other would have been exposed before the quarantine.




On the subject of proof of giving a warning, maybe all those diagnosed with things like STD, HIV & AIDs should be forced to get sexual partners to sign a disclaimed saying they are aware of the risks and willingly taking them, without such a disclaimed the legal assumption being that they did not know. Kinda like wearing a plague bell around their neck but less dramatic as only potential partners hear it ringing.

On the subject of exposure not guaranteeing infection so the infection could have come from another source, I believe those infected already have to disclose sexual history for the purpose of testing all those they had contact with, so if everyone they had sex with before was clear a process of elimination would tell who had infected them. But would that hold up in court ?

It's called Criminal HIV Exposure or Criminal Transmission of HIV/AIDS. However, not every state has a criminal statue against it, and those that do have varying degrees of criminal charges; in some states it is a misdemeanor, and in other states it is a felony.

http://www.thebody.com/content/art6936.html