Halachic Perspectives on AIDS*
Lord Immanuel Jakobovitz
In trying to bring some Halachic perspectives to bear on
AIDS and its ramifications, I see our role as Jews here at a three-fold level.
First, we are halachically under an obligation to promote all human beings to
be subject to the “Sheva Mitzvot B’nei Noach,” to the seven Noachide
commandments, the fundamental moral order which includes laws on sexual
morality, on incest, on adultery, and on anything that constitutes a violation
of those normal constraints within which we are perfectly entitled to exercise
our sexual drive. There is, then, the obligation to do whatever we can to
promote the understanding, the knowledge and the study of these laws, and the
submission to them – this is part of a halachic dictate laid down in the
Rambam, in his Code of Hilchot Melachim, as a religious obligation: “Lachuf
et kol ha’olam” – to compel, as far as we have it in our power to do so,
the whole world to abide by these laws.
So
to begin with, we are directly under a religious obligation to share our moral
commitments with our fellow humans, beyond the confines of our own people.
Secondly,
there is the element of Kiddush Hashem which is quite distinct and
separate, that we ought to be seen as Jews to be in the forefront of the moral
pioneering, ethical engineering, in fulfilling our national purpose, which is
to blaze a trail of moral advancement for the world. In the past, we have been
conscious of this assignment and have contributed enormously to the enrichment
of the human experience, in moral terms. Ideas which today are commonplace and
taken for granted the world over, were initiated by our people. Concepts like
brotherhood of man, social justice, human rights as we call them today – all of
these are part of our Jewish heritage. After centuries and millennia of
aloneness in the commitment to these values, they are only now beginning to be
shared by the rest of the human family. We are charged to fulfill the promise
as given towards the end of the blessings and curses in the Torah:
“And
all the nations of the world shall see that the name of the Lord is called upon
you – ki shem Hashem nikra alecha,” viz. that we live a Godly life, an
exemplary life within our home life, our family life, with integrity, and moral
values. This in itself is a second assignment given to our people, and
therefore should give us a sense of urgency and importance in seeking to be
heard and seen in any public argument that impinges on moral considerations,
whether on abortion, or on AIDS, or on anything that is of moral nature, we
should be seen as Jews to play our due part to contributing to public
enlightenment and to the elevation, the ennoblement, of public life and of the
social atmosphere within which we live.
Thirdly, and
above all, Jews owe it to themselves to know what their heritage has to say. We
shouldn’t have to learn from newspaper articles and from other faiths that have
borrowed many of our moral concepts from us: we should not be dependent on
absorbing and cultivating moral values from those who were themselves
originally nourished, sustained and inspired by our Jewish education, that we
turn out young people who have been to Hebrew classes, and sometimes to day
schools, but who are utterly alien in terms of understanding Jewish teachings.
And I think that this is one of the saddest comments on the failure and indeed
bankruptcy of Jewish teaching on basic moral values relating to our present-day
experience. This is catastrophic! We have failed! Yes, we do teach them about
observances of different kinds relating to Sabbath and prayers and laws of
Kashrut – but to imprison Judaism in the kitchen, the Synagogue, the cemetery,
is doing violence to the very basis of Jewish teachings: and if you just leaf
through the pages of the Tanach and the Prophets, you will see that very little
space is given there to matters of ritual, and the bulk is given over to moral
and social relations between man and man based on decency, honesty and moral
values.
So,
on all three scores, we are here under a direct challenge to participate, to
enrich our own understanding and research into how we would respond to what is,
after all, an unprecedented scourge that now menaces the entire human race.
Perhaps not yet sufficiently appreciated is the scale of the calamity that
threatens us. I am told that it is anticipated that, if the present trends are
maintained for the rest of this century (which is another 14 years or so), it
can be expected that the number of fatal casualties from AIDS will amount to
more than the total number of dead in the two World Wars, in excess of 40
million – worldwide of course. So we are dealing here with a calamity of such
enormity in terms of numbers, not to mention the suffering that goes with it
prior to death, that it staggers the imagination. Moreover, it is, I suppose,
the first time since the days of Noah’s Flood that we have such a universal
visitation of suffering. There were, in the Middle Ages, plagues in vast
epidemics; but they were localised pockets of outbreaks that ravaged whole
populations, and yet limited to different parts of Europe at one time,
occasionally elsewhere, nothing like the universal plague that is now manifest
in the depths of Africa, in the United States, in this country, in Europe and,
alas, also in Israel. So the universality of the phenomenon in itself is
something entirely unprecedented.
Now,
I wish to make at least a passing reference to a sensitive aspect of AIDS, and
its victims – and I think we ought to be clear about this. One of my criticisms
of the Government campaign is precisely that it fudges the issue and tries to
blur the facts that stare us in the face. 96%, I gather from medical literature
to-date, of the fatalities so far from AIDS are to be found among the
homosexual community, or among so-called “high-risk” groups. And it has spread
beyond, and the dangers are great that the contagion will increase. But at the
moment, it is clearly a highly selective form of visitation, and therefore
obviously raises the most profound theological and moral problems of
interpretation of cause and effect, of the role of the supernatural, of God, of
Divine Justice and punishment.
I
will merely say, as I put it in my article in The Times, that from my reading
of Jewish sources, it would appear that under no circumstances would we be
justified in branding the incidence of the disease, individually or
collectively, as punishment that singles out individuals or groups for
wrongdoing and lets them suffer as a consequence. We are not inspired enough,
prophetic enough, we have not the vision, that would enable us to link, as an
assertion of certainty, any form of human travail, grief, bereavement or
suffering in general with shortcomings of a moral nature – especially our
generation, living as we still do, in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust,
where millions of Jews were done to death with the most unspeakable brutality.
We certainly should beware of ever identifying specific forms of grief,
suffering, or anxiety with specific moral or any other shortcomings. It is not
part of the Jewish doctrine of reward and punishment to so identify individual
cases with individual experiences of great anguish. I therefore do not go along
with, but on the contrary, strongly reject and oppose those preachers or
would-be preachers who declare that it is Divine vengeance, that the wrath of
God is being visited on those who deserve it because they live in the cesspools
of evil. On the contrary, we should seek to stretch out whatever hand of help,
of understanding, of solace, of compassion one can to sufferers, not to
inflict, in addition to the agony through which they go, the additional
humiliation and indignity and reproof of saying ‘you deserved it.’ This is
utterly un-Jewish, and is utterly to be rejected. But having said that, we
should at the same time add, that certainly we can see here that the particular
visitation that now devastates people potentially by the million, is a
consequence of a form of life that is morally unacceptable, and utterly
repugnant to us.
It
is one thing to speak of a consequence, and it is quite another thing to speak
of a punishment. The illustration I used was if you warn a child not to play
with fire, lest he gets burnt, and the child then gets burnt, then the burning
may not be a punishment for not listening, but it certainly is a consequence.
Likewise, I think until we make clear that AIDS is a consequence, we do not get
to the root of it. I think we should declare in very plain and explicit terms
indicating that our society violated some of the norms of the Divine Law, and
of the natural law, and that as a consequence we pay a price, and an
exceedingly heavy price. This certainly is Jewish doctrine. So there is a clear
line of demarcation between punishment and consequence to be drawn. I need hardly
spell out to an informed audience, certainly one that is likely to know the
rudiments of Jewish teaching, that any form of sexual gratification outside
marriage cannot be condoned by Jewish law. Whether this is pre-marital, or
extra-marital, or whether this is altogether unnatural in the form of
homosexuality – we utterly disapprove of this as an abomination. It is treated
by Biblical law as a moral aberration that we cannot come to terms with.
Some
argue that there are innate, instinctive, natural inclinations or aberrations
which some of us are born with; they do not follow the norms of heterosexual
love of most of the population. It is also claimed that a genetic condition can
predispose towards an irregularity in the form of homosexuality. Therefore, it
is argued that we have to accept this, it is a fact of life that this exists.
We cannot accept this argument. One might as well say that it is only a natural
drive, a natural urge, that accounts for any unusual or abnormal passion or
instinct within us. So that, if a married man is suddenly attracted to someone
other than his wife to gratify a sexual urge – can he then also claim that this
is just a normal drive which should therefore be condoned or sanctioned? Yet we
still will maintain the need for exercising self-control and discipline to
prevent extramarital relations. By succumbing to temptation because it is
natural one could justify the breach of all the Ten Commandments. Killing a
marriage, and killing a human being (murder and adultery) are placed side by
side in the Torah because they are regarded as equally heinous. In other words,
the fact that an act is natural does not make it any less abhorrent or
criminal.
This
is consistant with a very fundamental Jewish belief. We believe that we are created
as human beings in order to master our lusts, our passions, our natural drives
and urges. And that is precisely the uniqueness of man, that we are not to
become the defenceless victims, slaves, to our instincts, surrendering to them.
We have the ability within us to exercise the moral control that enables us to
“discriminate between right and wrong,” even if it is against our natural
urges. And, just as we occasionally have to overcome the natural urge of
hunger, by having to fast, which requires an act of self-discipline, or by
abstaining from any number of normal pursuits that the constant exercise in
self-discipline requires of us. so here also, the mere fact that some urge is
natural is not an excuse for surrendering to it.
Now,
let me turn to some more specific problems raised by AIDS in a Jewish context.
The other day, I saw a disturbing article in an American orthodox publication
dealing with some Halachic ramifications of AIDS (“AIDS: A Traditional
Response,” by Rabbi Barry Freundel, in Jewish Action, Winter
1986/87, pp.48-57). Evidently reflecting rather more panicky public attitudes
prevailing in certain parts of the United States than they do here, the author,
a very respectable and erudite Rabbi, suggests that because of the danger that
may be involved in passing on the contagion, those who are known to be carriers
of the AIDS virus can be denied, and possible should be denied, the normal
rites of Tahorah, of purification on death by the Chevra Kadisha.
For
the “mis’askim,” the (usually volunteer) officiants of the Chevra
Kadisha, cannot be expected to expose themselves to even the remote danger
of catching it, therefore they can deny this precious and sacred entitlement to
those who may be so affected. Similarly, the suggestion is made that if there
are children who happen to be carriers, (they can even be congenital carriers
by birth as we now know), one would not only be entitled, but required to
exclude them from Jewish schools, from Jewish instruction under public auspices
for fear that they may transmit the virus to others.
From
medical information as far as it is available to me, there is no justification
whatsoever for either suggestion; therefore Halachically such a ban would not
be warranted since AIDS cannot be passed on under the conditions mentioned here
if normal precautions are taken such as by the members of the Chevra
wearing gloves. Certainly, we would not want to contribute to creating a sense
of public hysteria which may itself undermine the resilience of society to a
situation as threatening as this. Of course, were it to be established by some
future research that indeed such danger does exist, unless public measures are
taken to exclude all forms of contact between those affected and others, then
there would be no question that it would become a Halachic imperative to
prevent this.
Such
a situation would involve an important Halachic principle. If there were five
people in a boat, remote from land, and one of them, it would be discovered,
suffers from (let us say) the bubonic plague, which is highly contagious,
threatening the lives of the other four, then he becomes in Halacha a “Rodef,”
a “pursuer.” Now, a pursuer or an aggressor does not have to be guilty. He
can be an innocent party; so long as he pursues someone else’s life, he
forfeits his life and may be killed to save his victim or victims. In other
words, you may save an innocent life at the direct cost of the pursuer’s,
innocent or guilty, in the fulfilment of the normal Torah regulation on the law
of “Rodef,” of aggressor or pursuer. To prove that a party need not be
guilty to be a pursuer, or to come within this category, I would refer to the
ruling of the Rambam – who mentiones it expressly as based on a passage in the
Talmud which seems to imply this – whereby an unborn child threatening the life
of the mother may be destroyed deliberately if necessary, because the child is
a “pursuer.” Although the child is certainly innocent – the child did not
deliberately set out to threaten the mother’s life – nevertheless, its claim to
life is set aside because of its categorisation as a “Rodef.” in order
to save a life that is threatened, that is under attack. Accordingly, in
respect of innocent bystanders, third parties, exposed to the risk of
infection, then those who deliberately or innocently pass on that infection
would come within the category of “Rodef,” and society would be entitled
to protect themselves against any such threat to their lives. So far the
Halacha, at least in theory.
Whether
this could ever be implemented in practice, merely from the point of view of
social realities. I frankly cannot see. There are, of course, also weighty
counter-indications, such as the danger that AIDS sufferers may regard themselves
as victims of “pursuit,” and therefore intent on spreading the infection
deliberately, thereby protecting their own lives by seeking safety in numbers.
I do not think there are any ready-made answers on how to deal with
unprecedented situations of these proportions. Other problems, too, are
baffling and defy any definitive answers: for instance, whether, as widely
advocated, we should increasingly think of compulsory testing of people to
discover if they are carriers or not. Considering that the incubation period
can extend up to eight years, and during that time the illness can be
transmitted, when would one be subject to such test? And to whom would one
communicate the result – the patient on whom one would thereby inflict a
shattering trauma, or others who would then ostracize the patient or otherwise
discriminate against him? All these are frightful questions for which no
immediate and reliable answers can yet be found.
Other
practical issues, too, cannot easily be resolved. Assuming we do have
compulsory testing, what do we do with those identified as carriers? Make them
wear labels? Or, as has already been suggested in some quarters, tattoo them in
certain parts of their bodies to brand them with recognisable marks? This,
again, staggers the human mind at the moment. Therefore I do not think that one
should glibly and superficially reach out for answers that will require, first
of all, the careful cultivation of a social conscience, of a moral conscience,
in the world, before one can begin to find socially and morally acceptable
answers to questions of this magnitude. But, Halachically, the law certainly
would be that those whose lives are in any way threatened have the right to
take every measure to protect themselves under the law of “Rodef.”
I
now come to my final and main point. My major criticism of the current
campaign, as I expressed it the other day to the Secretary of State for Health,
Norman Fowler, is that we are too readily prepared to promote the second best,
instead of in the first instance advocating the ultimate and ideal solution. I
have read in The Jewish Chronicle what Jewish young people are supposed
to think: the overwhelming majority of views, as recorded in the interviews
held, seemed to be that one cannot expect young Jews and Jewesses today to live
a truly clean life, to live an absolutely moral life according to Jewish
doctrines of modesty and of self-control; therefore one must come to terms with
the fact that people will have pre-marital adventures and the like. I could not
think of a greater slur on our young generation, a greater offense to the
dignity and integrity of young people than to make such a generalised
accusation, assuming the inability of young people to live up to what used to
be the most treasured virtue of our Jewish heritage, and that is the sanctity
and the stability of the Jewish home. I think we are underestimating the power
of resistance and of resiliance or indeed even the capacity of society
generally retracing its steps and going through some kind of a moral
revolution. Nothing could be more defeatist than simply to surrender faith in
the rising generation, believing that we can never restore the norms of decency
by limiting any form of sexual intimacies to relations within marriage
exclusively.
And
as I reminded the Secretary of State, I have no doubt that at present, the
damage done of to the fabric of society by the erosion of marriages – in terms
of the number of misfits resulting from divorce, of young people being raised
without a father and a mother, without the love and compassion with which they
should be raised, plus the social irritations with their enormous cost to
society, to the nation, incurred by broken homes and single parents – that
damage is far greater, at the moment, than the damage done by AIDS; marriage
breakdowns cost the nation appreciable more than AIDS. Therefore the black
cloud of this scourge may have its silver lining, as it were, challenging us to
restore the respect for marriage – above all, by education, by properly
training and preparing for marriage. The whole attitude requires a thorough
revision. Currently, it is utterly irresponsible. We simply allow people to
have fling trying out one marriage, and if it does not work, tomorrow they will
have another fling. The lightheartedness with which people enter into it, flows
from not being prepared for the earnestness of it, and the responsibilities
that are involved. If we could invest only a fraction of the resources that
currently have to be spent on a colossal scale on looking after AIDS victims,
if we could spend that on fortifying home life, we would probably contribute
more to containing AIDS and help to overcome the tragedy that faces us.
Altogether,
the campaign presently conducted over the media and by leaflets dropped into
every home is in some respect misguided, and in others perhaps even
counter-productive. The slogan “Don’t die of ignorance” is completely
misleading. Ignorance is not a fatal disease. People die of high-risk
behaviour, not of ignorance. Moreover, the condom campaign in effect condones
immorality.
Telling
people “protect yourself against the consequences of doing the wrong thing” is
just like saying to them “we will send you into a contaminated environment, but
we will provide you with gas masks and with protective clothing so that nothing
will happen to you.” It is, I think, utterly irresponsible to say “go and do
whatever you like, but we will give you advice on how to protect yourself
against the consequences.”
Worse
still, the campaign may well give a faise sense of security. Not only is the
condom itself not always absolutely reliable, but in the end, when the moment
of temptation comes, the lovers at the height of their passion will forget about
the protection, and therefore relying on it will contribute to spreading this
plague instead of containing it. as the campaign seeks to do. So the dangers
are great, and the whole focus here may be wrong.
Let
me conclude with a more general observation of some relevance to our situation.
The Biblical record begins before and at the dawn of the Patriarchal period
with a striking contrast. There was Noah, who lived at at time of universal
corruption: “ki hishchit kol basar” – precisely the same kind of
corruption that we encounter today – and he saw a whole world drowning and yet
did not care. He built his own ark, safe for himself, but he did not pray for
the world, did not work to prevent the spread of the contagion and looked on
safely from the security of his shelter. That has to be contrasted, ten
generations later, to Abraham, who also faced a city that was corrupt. Sodom.
From this derives the word “sodomy” which is the very reference to what we are
talking about. Abraham could not tolerate this. For him the city’s doom was
something that stirred his conscience. There was not a single Jew in Sodom;
nevertheless, he pleaded against the destruction of Sodom. That is how Jewish
history begins, because no Jewish heart can be indifferent to people suffering,
deserved or undeserved, corrupt or not corrupt. When fellow human beings are in
danger, we are to plead for them, to work for them, to have compassion, to
extend our feelings of empathy to them.
Similarly,
the very last message of the Biblical reading on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
the holiest days of the year, is the story of Yonah’s mission to Niniveh. Here,
a prophet of God is sent out from the land of God to a pagan city, Niniveh.
Miles away from his own homeland, across the ocean he was told “go and warn the
population” to ward off the doom that would be theirs. The erosion of moral
values would eventually rob them of salvation. The prophet tried to deny his
mission and escape from it. But he was eventually forced back to it because our
responsibility extends to pagan cities just as much as to our own community. We
cannot simply wash our hands and say “it is not our business” and we are not
concerned. That is the final and ultimate message of the whole of the High
Holidays.
However,
before that, the reading of the Law for Mincha on Yom Kippur before the
Haftarah is read, is the passage from Leviticus dealing with sexual morality
and immorality. How does that relate to Yom Kippur? What has this to do with
Yom Kippur? Yom Kippur is the one day on which we must not have intimate
relations even with our own wives, let alone with outsiders. The real Holy of
Holies of life is how we conduct ourselves in the most intimate moments. We are
to be aware that God watches us, not only how we deport ourselves outside, in
public, but in the most intimate moments of our existence. Someone watches, and
we are accountable. That is the final message of the Torah readings on Yom
Kippur. It is of no value to go through the whole procedure of atonement on Yom
Kippur, of reconciliation with God, spending a whole day in Sanctuary, if we
are not first and foremost to have a “send-off message,” as it were, of Yom
Kippur, a message on inner cleanliness, on purity of thought and of mind, on
the controls which sanctify us, and which make us different from the brutes.
The very heart of the Jewish message is, as I have put it, that more important
than clean needles are clean thoughts and clean conduct.
If
we as Jews are not going to represent this message, if we are going to despair
of rescuing a generation that is afflicted and faces a colossal calamity, if we
are simply going to surrender faith that it can be done, then we are guilty of
a betrayal of our own people, and by extension of our fellow men. I think an
enormous opportunity, as well as challenge, faces us to vindicate our survival
after 4000 years. For if we did not still have something unique to contribute
to the betterment of the human condition, and to the elimination of vice and
crime and immorality from the world, then we might as well bow out. We have not
had such a bad run, 4000 years as a people, we have done pretty well. Other bigger
peoples than ours have come and gone and joined the limbo of history. Unless we
are still indispensable by making incomparable contributions to the advancement
of the human order and the progress of the moral law. we have nothing further
to do, and we should have no complaints if the world now would shed no tears
over the disappearance of our people.
If.
however, we do justify our continued existence, vindicating our claim to
survival by still making ourselves indispensable, and creating something that used
to be exemplary (even Goyim used to hold up the Jewish home and its stability
as an example), if we do that, then maybe, we will merit once again the final
conclusion of that verse: “V’ra’u kol amei ha’aretz ki shem Hashem nikra
alecha v’yar’u mimekah” – and all the peoples of the earth will see that
the name of the Lord is called upon you, and they will have respect for you.”
We will regain that reverence, that awe, and that respect which will ultimately
ensure our physical as well as spiritual safety. By virtue of our contribution
to the moral integrity and physical safety of all human brothers, for whose
well-being we care desperately, we will merit out own security and assure the
fulfillment of our purpose.
Memorandum on AIDS
Submitted
by the Chief Rabbi to the Social Services Committee of the House of Commons
This memorandum deals specifically with the public
response to the challenge of AIDS, with special reference to the Government
campaign as projected through the media.
I realise of course that there will be many new complex
moral problems to be faced beyond those to which I have addressed myself. They
will concern, for instance, questions on compulsory testing, the identification
of carriers, the right of insurance companies or employees to obtain medical
data otherwise protected by confidentiality, the risks to life in experimenting
on possible cures or vaccines, and numerous other such perplexities. I do not
know how far the remit of the Committee includes considering such questions.
Nor could I readily produce answers for which 1 could claim moral authenticity
in the light of Jewish teachings. But I am prepared to probe into these issues
if invited to give an opinion on them.
The Government is
to be applauded on the urgency, boldness, and effectiveness manifest in its
campaign. It appears to strike the right balance between hysteria and
complacency, between alerting, even alarming, the population on the potentially
awesome threat posed by the scourge, and reassuring citizens against undue panic
which could lead to communal neurosis already widespread in the USA.
It
is also important to consider the possible effects of causing the “high-risk”
groups to sense that they may be threatened by mounting discrimination in
employment, education and social integration. Such a feeling, if allowed to
become acute, could well encourage a sense of despair and resentment, breeding
the desire to seek safety in numbers, even by deliberately spreading the
contagion. The utmost care is therefore needed in dealing with the affected
groups compassionately and with understanding, individually as well as
collectively, so as to ward off the danger of major social tensions erupting
into violence and other threats to the population at large.
On
the other hand, I am disturbed by the general thrust of the publicity campaign,
as epitomised by the slogan “Don’t Die of Ignorance.” Ignorance is not a fatal
disease, and the real source of the danger through irresponsible behaviour
ought to be far more explicitly spelt out.
Of
course, I appreciate that a government cannot take a moral stance, particularly
on an issue on which public opinion is widely divided, and which affects so
delicately the most intimate human relations. I accept the need for moral
neutrality. But I cannot accept anything which publicly condones or encourages
immorality. The present campaign does.
By
speaking of “safe sex” or “safer sex,” and by advising on recourse on condoms
“unless you are sure of your partner,” the campaign officially accepts some
form of extra-marital relations as the norm. This introduces into millions of
perfectly moral homes, and especially of children and young people hitherto
sheltered from exposure to indecency and marital faithlessness, notions that
had been utterly alien and unknown to them. This itself is immoral, and may in
time prove a source of major moral corruption for the very element of society
most concerned to preserve its immunity to pernicious influences of this kind.
The slant of the campaign also provides justification for deviations from moral
norms for those who may have hitherto looked on “casual sex” and promiscuous
conduct with some degree of disquiet or even guilt. This, too, is immoral.
Altogether,
in effect the campaign encourages promiscuity by advertising it. It tells
people not what is right, but how to do wrong and get away with it – much like
sending people into a contaminated atmosphere, but providing them with
gas-masks and protective clothing. It quite wrongly assumes some inability to
exercise self-control, which is clearly the ultimate answer to the spread of
the affliction.
Equally
worrying is the sense of false security promoted in the campaign. By creating
the impression that condoms are an effective safeguard, one can ultimately only
increase the danger. Neither are condoms absolutely reliable when used, nor are
they always likely to be used in moments when passions are aroused. Condoms
cannot replace self-discipline as a shield against infection, and any pretense
to the contrary is dangerous in the extreme. By promising safety, the campaign
would only increase the spread of AIDS in the long run.
Moral
attitudes are clearly already undergoing some significant changes, as borne out
in the latest Gallup Poll (commissioned by the Bradman Charitable Foundation
and issued in February 1987). It shows that 74% of the sample (1.115 people
aged 16 and over) agreed that the only way of avoiding AIDS was to stick to one
faithful partner, whilst 96% wanted schools to warn children about the dangers
of casual sex. The Government should not do anything to inhibit this trend or
to impede its gaining momentum.
It
should also be realised that far greater than the suffering and expenditure
imposed by AIDS on society is the social damage and financial cost caused by
marriage break-downs or “alternative lifestyle” – in particular the appalling
predilection to crime, violence and drug-addiction among children raised in the
absence of a loving home, as well as in terms of inefficiency, anxiety and
sheer desperation while at work among people afflicted by marital failure or
unhappiness. Apart from the astronomical economic cost of this drag on output
and social services, the resultant depression in turn drives people to sexual
adventures outside marriage which cannot but aggravate the incidence of AIDS.
The public campaign should therefore be thoroughly revised and redirected
towards emphasising marital stability as the only “safe” norm. Encouragement
should be given, if only by token contributions to marriage training and
couselling agencies, to some intensive preparation for the responsibilities of
marriage inside and outside schools, eventually as a prerequisite for marriage
registrations, in much the same way as driving courses leading to successful
tests are taken for granted as a condition for the issue of driving licences to
prevent damage and injury through inadequate training or recklessness. Sex
education at schools should be specifically geared to preparation for marriage,
including the avoidance of pre-marital sex which cannot but undermine a
subsequent marriage as an anti-climax.
At the same time, it
is not enough for the positive aspects of the campaign to be more explicit to
the point of encouraging fidelity in marriage (not “stable partners” which is a
circumlocution for immoral non-maritai relations). The negative aspects, too,
need to be spelt out more directly. With all the publicity of statistics, the
population does not know that 96% of AIDS victims are in the “high risk”
groups, and that these are made up overwhelmingly of homosexuals with the rest
through promiscuity and drug abuse. These facts must not be concealed by
suppression or be fudged by euphemisms. They are as essential in public
enlightenment as the knowledge that the virus may be transmitted by unclean needles
or infected blood.
In short, the campaign
should say plainly: AIDS is the consequence of pre-marital sex, marital
infidelity, sexual deviation and social irresponsibility – sacrificing enduring
happiness for momentary pleasures, and putting selfish indulgence before duty
and discipline. In today’s climate of moral questioning and a greater readiness
to revise personal “life-styles,” the message will not go unheeded, and the
long-term effects in repairing the social fabric based on solid marriages may
prove to be enormous in defending society against and far transcending the
awesome ravages of AIDS.
Source: ASSIA – Jewish Medical
Ethics,
Vol. II, No. 1, January 1991, pp. 3-8