While science has vastly advanced since the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic more than 30 years ago, the ways in which many criminal laws treat people living with HIV look like throwbacks to the dark days of the past when fear and misinformation about HIV and how it is transmitted wer…
H.R. 1843, REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act Outreach Toolkit | The Center for HIV Law and Policy
H.R. 1843, the Repeal Existing Policies that Encourage and Allow Legal (REPEAL) HIV Discrimination Act, was introduced on May 7, 2013 by U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).
US: Advocate editorial supports REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
This past week, U.S. representative Barbara Lee reintroduced a bill to repeal HIV criminalization laws across the nation, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Earlier this year, LGBT people went on red alert when a public health bill in Kansas proposed that people living with HIV could be quarantined.
China: Guangdong Province revises policy preventing people with HIV from being teachers
HIV carriers and people with sexually transmitted diseases (STD) will be able to take up teaching posts in Guangdong Province from September 1, according to a recently revised regulation from the provincial education authority. The Department of Education of Guangdong Province published the regulation on the physical conditions of applicants for teaching posts on April 16. It no longer stipulated that those with HIV or STDs are prohibited from the teaching profession, despite an earlier draft regulation published at the beginning of the year in which the ban was still listed.
In 2007, Guangdong began implementing a trial regulation on the physical conditions of applications for teachers, in which HIV carriers and people with STDs were automatically disqualified from teaching positions. When the draft regulation was initially published to get public feedback, anti-discrimination NGOs protested that the ban on HIV carriers was still included.
US: REPEAL ACT to modernise HIV criminalisation laws reintroduced with bipartisan support
Yesterday, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Democrat) was joined by Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican) to introduce a new version of the ‘Repeal Existing Policies that Encourage and Allow Legal HIV Discrimination Act’ (the ‘REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act’, or the ‘REPEAL Act’) first introduced by Congresswoman Lee in September 2011.
The REPEAL Act was the first to take on the issue of HIV criminalisation in the United States. The first time around it achieved 41 co-sponsors, all of whom were Democrats.
It is notable this this time, the REPEAL Act (known formally as H.R. 1843) has intially been co-sponsored by a Republican, suggesting the Act may go further this time and make it out of committee and on to the floor for consideration.
A press release issued yesterday by Congresswoman Lee’s office summarises the proposed legislation (which can be read in full and downloaded below):
“These laws are based on bias, not science. We need to make sure that our federal and state laws don’t discriminate against people who are living with HIV. These laws breed fear, discrimination, distrust, and hatred, and we’ve got to modernize them. That’s exactly what this legislation would do,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee.
Today, 32 states and 2 U.S. territories have criminal statutes based on outdated information regarding HIV/AIDS. This bipartisan legislation would allow federal and state officials and community stakeholders to work together to review the efficacy of laws that target people living with HIV/AIDS. The REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act would authorize the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Defense to monitor new and existing laws imposing criminal liability against people with HIV/AIDS and to establish a set of best practices for legislatures to consider when proposing such legislation.
Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen added, “I’m pleased to co-sponsor this bipartisan bill that will help end the serious problem of discrimination in criminal and civil cases against those who are HIV positive. Singling out and discriminating against those living with HIV is not in line with our American values and we must do better. The legislation seeks to modernize our current outdated laws and bring them into the 21st century. I urge my Republican and Democrat colleagues to join Barbara and me in helping those persons living with HIV live as healthy and normal a life as possible.”
If passed, the act will be a key step towards ending unfair and unjust HIV criminalization laws in the United States by developing a set of best practices for the treatment of HIV in criminal and civil commitment cases, issuing guidance to states based on those best practices, and monitoring how states change policies consistent with that guidance.
Lambda Legal Urges Congress to Pass the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
Lambda Legal is voicing its support the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act, which would encourage states to reconsider laws and practices that unfairly target people with HIV for consensual sex and conduct that poses no real risk of HIV transmission. Scott Schoettes, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project Director, says: “The more messages we can send to states to modernize or eliminate HIV criminalization laws the better—and that is exactly what this bill does. It is high time the nation’s HIV criminalization laws reflect the current reality of living with HIV, both from medical and social perspectives. Except for perhaps the most extreme cases, the criminal law is far too blunt an instrument to address the subtle dynamics of HIV disclosure.”
US: Well-meaning bill to repeal Maryland's HIV-specific criminal law may do more harm than good, advocates warn
A Maryland lawmaker and a handful of local advocates have started the course to repeal the state’s HIV-specific criminal law, and if other states’ efforts are any indication, Maryland’s path will likely be a long and winding one. Maryland Del. Shirley Nathan-Pulliam (D-Baltimore County) decided last week to withdraw a short-lived bill that would have repealed a state law that makes it a misdemeanor crime – punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and/or three years in prison – for a person who has HIV to “knowingly transfer or attempt to transfer” the virus to another person. Nathan-Pulliam said she withdrew the bill after hearing from HIV advocates who feared a straight repeal of the state law might do more harm than good.
Iowa: HIV-specific criminal law reform moves out of committee to the Senate
DES MOINES — HIV-positive people who have sex without disclosing their status would face reduced penalties, similar to those for transmitting other communicable diseases, under a proposal advanced Tuesday in the Iowa Senate. The bill introduced by Sen. Matt McCoy would allow people who intentionally transmit the virus to their partner to be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison. That’s more in line with punishments for transmitting other diseases, such as hepatitis C.
McCoy has introduced versions of the bill in past years, but this is the first time it made it to the floor. Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, voted to move the measure out of committee, saying it is wrong to single out those with HIV. “I think it’s entirely appropriate to treat all diseases of a similar nature, chronic incurable diseases, in the same fashion, and the penalties of the current law are Draconian, to say the least,” he said. Despite supporting the bill, Quirmbach said he agreed with concerns raised by two Republicans, who said they opposed the measure because unlike the current law, it doesn’t require infected people to tell a partner of their illness.
hivandhepatitis.com – President's HIV/AIDS Council Responds to Unjust HIV Criminalization Laws | HIV Policy & Advocacy
The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) passed a resolution this month stating that punishments imposed for HIV non-disclosure or exposureareout of proportion to actual harm inflicted, and that HIV criminalization is bad public health policy that fuels the epidemic.
Iowa legislators introduce HIV de-criminalization bill – The Daily Iowan
State lawmakers introduced a bill this week that, if passed, would change the human immunodeficiency virus criminalization laws in Iowa. Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, worked extensively on the bill with Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines. “[Iowa’s criminal HIV law] was put on the books when HIV and AIDS were first coming out and little was known about it,” Sodders said. “We have more information, better drugs, and we know more about the transmission of HIV so we also need to update our law to avoid being overly punitive in cases where they don’t need to be.”