Abstinence Bush Admin's Answer to AIDS

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by molly bloom
So how many people do you know personally who have died as a result infection with H.I.V. and of having Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?


Do you know what the effects of cyto-megalo virus on the brain and the optic nerve are?

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/healt...index=9972&src=news

How about long term peripheral neuropathy:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/peripheralneuropathy_doc.htm

Kaposi's Sarcoma:

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite.jsp?page=kb-06-02-03

meningitis:

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic163.htm

pneumo-cystis pneumonia:

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/pneumocystis_pneumonia.html

toxoplasmosis:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmosis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm

I suggest before you start giving Apolyton the benefit of your inexperience with regards to deaths from H.I.V. infection you get some 'hands on' experience.

If you think that watching someone die, doubly incontinent, deaf, blind and insane, isn't hellish either for them or for their partner, or their friends, then clearly you have a different definition of 'hellish'- one I suspect that is formed by your ignorance of the matter.

Still, having your insides turn liquid and leak out of your orifices is somewhat more painful.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
If you have any brains, you'll use a condom to be safe. Does this make you morally responsible for catching AIDS? No more than eating a burger makes you responsible for catching Mad Cow Disease, or diriving in a car means that you deserve to be injured in an accident.

What does moral responsiblity have to do with this? You don't hurt anyone but yourself if you get AIDS (unless you give it to someone else, but that's irrelevant to what we're talking about). It's just, after you've been warned, you can't blame anything but your own decision for your condition. You knew the risk was there, and decided to take it. Do you cry over dead skydivers?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Originally posted by MrFun
Apparently, Kucinich believes that people who have AIDS deserve what they got?

What do you mean, deserve? I think it's their own fault, and the consequences of their own actions, and they were warned! So I don't really feel any pity.

It would be too patronizing to show pity to someone -- compassion is a much more respectable way of showing sympathy or even empathy for some people.

I'm not arguing whether or not many AIDS victims failed to take responsibility for their own actions. Obviously, many of them did. But like I said, I'm not going to kick a guy who is already down because he got AIDS even if he was not responsible.

[Kuciwalker]

We aren't kicking them at all.

I'm just saying, I really don't care that Bush is telling them that abstinence is the only 100% protection against AIDS, especially given that it's the gospel truth, and I don't really feel compelled to spend money helping out those who didn't take the advice and got burned.

[MrFun]

Abstinence is one of the more effective ways to prevent STDs -- that's obvious to anyone. And abstinence would work if we lived in a fantastical, uptight, Victorian world that by the way, never existed in human history (during the actual so-called Victorian era, sex outside of marriage abounded just as in every other time).

But pray tell me how you tell people to abstain from sex when you know the likliehood of that is oh, I don't know . . . . close to zero?

[KrazyHorse]

Kucinich, when some French Montreal hottie takes you back to her place you're going to be damn glad you know what you do about condoms, STDs and pregnancy, and that you hadn't simply been told by some fat old white dude that abstinence was the only sure way to avoid STDs.

[Kuciwalker]

Abstinence is one of the more effective ways to prevent STDs -- that's obvious to anyone.

It is the most effective, being in fact 100% effective, quite obviously.

And abstinence would work if we lived in a fantastical, uptight, Victorian world that by the way, never existed in human history (during the actual so-called Victorian era, sex outside of marriage abounded just as in every other time).

Actually, it still works. It's just lots of people don't actually do it. It's their own fault.

But pray tell me how you tell people to abstain from sex when you know the likliehood of that is oh, I don't know . . . . close to zero?

Because then they've been warned, and it really is their fault if they get burned. It's not possibly in any way, shape or form my responsibility to help them.

[MrFun]

KH -- you have to explain to Kucinich what condoms are first.

[KrazyHorse]

I've actually read the instructions on the side of a condom package. I'm glad I didn't learn to put one on from there in the heat of the moment.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by MrFun
KH -- you have to explain to Kucinich what condoms are first.

What are these "condoms"?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kucinich


Still, having your insides turn liquid and leak out of your orifices is somewhat more painful.

Do yourself and us a big fat favour- shut the f*ck up about a subject on which you are painfully ill-informed and clearly too emotionally immature to deal with.


Frankly I'm glad you're several thousand miles away at the moment becuase I don't think anyone's posts, not even the religionistas at their most obtuse and obdurate have caused me as much anger as your puerile screeds.

Perhaps you could also tell us what you know about the state of health service provision in sub-Saharan Africa, old age pensions, sick pay, unemployment benefit, ah f*ck it, just don't bother posting any more inanity in this thread.

[Combat Ingrid]

Don't be so hard on him, he's just a child

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kucinich


Yes. Unless you got it from a blood transfusion, it's your own fault if you get it.

The question was, should AIDS prevention in the West consist solely of abstinence campaigns.

Claiming that HIV/AIDS only affects the infected is bizarre, BTW. An estimated several hundred thousand children have died of insufficient care because their parents have been killed by AIDS. The disease is a huge drag on many African economies, and costs are not exactly neglible everywhere else either. Large numbers of people are dying, or going to die, because costs incured by AIDS is squeezing out spending on the prevention of other diseases.

But I guess getting infected by Malaria is your own fault too?

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Kucinich
What does moral responsiblity have to do with this? You don't hurt anyone but yourself if you get AIDS (unless you give it to someone else, but that's irrelevant to what we're talking about). It's just, after you've been warned, you can't blame anything but your own decision for your condition. You knew the risk was there, and decided to take it. Do you cry over dead skydivers?

Dude, the goal here is for AIDS to go the way of Polio and the Passenger Pigeon. Personal responsobility is a pretty pair of words that has nothing to do with the goal.

[David Floyd]

Agathon,

In your long history of disgraceful and boorish posts, this ranks near the top....blah blah blah...

You're missing something. Having unprotected sex in an area statistically low risk for AIDs or other serious STDs is not the same as having unprotected sex in someplace like Africa or Thailand. Duh.

Either way, though, it's your own fault if you catch AIDs as a result of unprotected sex. Hell, even if you try to use a condom and still get AIDs, it's still your own fault. Condoms aren't 100% effective - reasonable people know the risk involved, and most of those people ignore it. Doesn't mean they aren't responsible for the consequences of their actions, though.