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My wife early on in her pregnancy failed an HIV screening. It was a false positive, thankfully but still was scary. We all got tested, me, my son, we call came back negative. We were concerned with my wife because she works in a medical testing laboratory and she does handle HIV+ specimens. However even though the test results keep coming back odd (failing one, passing another, inconclusive a third), the doctors have given her the all clear.
If that man didn't know he was HIV+, it would have just been a tragedy... but since that man knew he was HIV+ and having unprotected sex, and two people got HIV through his actions then he's definitely reckless and needs some suitable punishment. The father did wrong, he knows it, he apologized and he's going to be doing the time. IMO, that's right and I don't dispute that.
I find the crime he was found guilty of more troubling though - felony child abuse. The child wasn't even BORN - from what I could tell from the limited information in the report, the child was just barely conceived at the time of infection. This would therefore say that now fertilized eggs now have legal rights and this messes up a whole lot of other issues, abortion and embryo stem cell research being the two that easily come to mind. Besides, how can ANYONE abuse a fertilized egg, in a womb, without any surgical or biological intervention? It may be that this particular crime was the only one the judge could make fit, or something...
I'm not going to turn this into a pro/anti abortion or stem cell debate question - but a man convicted of abusing an unborn child, how does that change things?
Mark.
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