World AIDS Day--December 1
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published November 30, 2006, 4:25 pm in Ethics, Morality, & Justice.
I was going to talk about the Israel-Palestinian conflict today, due to Condeleeza Rice's recent speech. But then I saw that December 1 is World AIDS Day, so I decided I had to bring this to everyone's attention. The UN began World AIDS Day in 1988, and it has continued the observation ever since. The theme of this year's World AIDS Day is "Stop AIDS. Keep the promise." And that's why I think this is a political issue.
It's more than a political issue, of course. It's also an ethical issue as well as a health issue. The health issue is obvious, so we'll begin there. According to the UN and the World Health Organization, 39.5 million people have the human immunodeficiency (HIV) virus worldwide and "2.9 million people died of AIDS related illnesses" in 2006. That's about 1.5% of the world's total 6.5 billion people. And contrast those numbers with the number of people who die of cancer every year--7.6 million in 2005. So cancer accounts for more than double the number of people who die of HIV related illnesses.
But there is a fundamental difference between the two diseases. While living a healthy lifestyle (not smoking, exercising, avoiding alcohol overindulgence) will help keep cancer away, it isn't fully preventable. Many perfectly healthy people get cancer. HIV, however, is almost entirely preventable. Abstinence from sex and drugs will do it for the most part, but protected sense will generally do the trick, too. And HIV is spreadable where cancer is not. Since HIV is a communicable disease, it is considered an epidemic or pandemic depending on who is doing the defining.
Why is it a political issue? Because 65% of all new cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa. There are only about one million cases of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. That's only about 2% of the total number of cases. That's a good thing in many ways. It means that the U.S. is doing right to prevent new cases of HIV. We should strive to wipe out all new cases of HIV in the U.S., of course, but let's consider the history of HIV and AIDS for a minute.
When AIDS first became an issue for the majority of the U.S. public, it was a disease among homosexuals. Even if this was a misunderstanding, it was how people saw it. Many said it was a condemnation of homosexually, something like "god's revenge against this abomination," or any other of the famous Fred Phelps slogans. Some may still think of it that way. Most people, however, realized very quickly that the disease was transmitted among heterosexuals, as well, and the notion of god's vengeance on gays was basically dismissed. It was a big issue for a while there, and a lot of compaigns began getting people to have protected sex. Go to nearly any college campus, and you can still get free condoms, for instance, all thanks to our concern over STDs (and unwanted pregnancies). So it has almost dropped out of our national conscience. A million people? Sure, that's a lot, but I think we expected it to be a lot higher. Rent and Philadelphia are long gone. Now we have minor sympathetic AIDS characters in movies such as The Hours, but for the most part, AIDS is fair game for satire, such as in Team America: World Police (remember that parody of Rent in the film? It's hilarious but also tragic. I laugh singing it to myself...I'm a bad person, I know.).
Now we see AIDS as primarily a disease of the third world, in developing nations only. Sure, people like Bono from U2 may try to do something to stop AIDS in these developing nations, but for the most part, the American public no longer cares. I know I don't think about it. I certainly don't worry about contracting the disease, and I don't worry about anyone I know getting it. It's just no longer an issue for us.
That's why the current World AIDS Day slogan is "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise." No, it's not a reference to some patriarchal religious organization; it's about politics.
In 2001, a group of 189 U.N. member nations agreed to do everything possible to stop and reverse the AIDS epidemic by 2015. That's a bold move. I think I may have heard about it when it came out, but it quickly left my consciousness.
Now I see things like half of all male South Africans will die from AIDS related diseases before age 60, and I'm only half troubled by it. What's wrong with me? I'm selfish, of course. It's not me. It's some other nation with problems that I didn't cause. My country didn't cause it. It's not easily stopped. What can I do? It's not like the U.S. invaded an African nation and screwed it up so that 950 people die of AIDS every day there. It's really not my problem.
And I hate myself for thinking that way. It's stupid is what it is. It's like our problem in Iraq. It's not hurting me, so why should I care? Or thinking that we should just pull out and let those people sort it out. Or leaving Sudan alone because that's some internal problem.
Let me state my point bluntly: We have an ethical imperative to help people wherever we can. Therefore, our country has an ethical imperative to help people wherever and whenever it can.
Sure, I leave an out there--whenever and wherever we can--for we can't cure all of the world's ills. But AIDS is preventable in most cases. It's about societal acceptance of birth control and educating the people about its necessity. We pledged to reverse AIDS by 2015 and we're nowhere near doing that. The future looks bleaker and bleaker. These countries will eventually have to educate their people, or else there will be no people to educate, but we need to step in and help now.
What does it take to do that? Well, the U.S. has already committed itself, so we don't have to worry about that. What it takes now is money. Lots of money. Tons of the green stuff.
But why should I allow that? Why should I allow my government to give my hard-earned money that I relinquish against my will in the first place to some third world country to help them stop an internal epidemic?
And the answer is simple, I'm afraid. Most questions like this are not. I'm still debating whether it's okay to topple a dictator who oppresses his people. I'm not sure if we should go into Sudan and help end their civil war. I wasn't sure about Bosnia. But this one is simple. We won't hurt anyone; we're not interfering in any conflict. We're not stopping democracy, installing a rival government, or anything like that. All we would be doing is helping them. Helping to educate them on the dangers and prevention, providing condoms free of charge, and then subsidizing drugs to help those who already have the disease.
That's an intervention I can live with. No guilt there. In fact, I think that's an intervention I can't live without. I hope I read stories everyday about people dying needlessly with AIDS. That way, it will continually remind me about my and my government's obligation to stop the crisis.
Comments & Trackbacks
By JT December 1, 2006, 11:54 pm. PermaLink
chad!! you are informed and edgy, and also Edge-y (check the connection to Bono, that was in your post, yo). way to go for establishing a personal tone while dealing with a huge and multifacted problem. your blog makes me Think.
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