Towards an AIDS Ethics Charter

My thoughts and feelings have been dominated by the HIV/AIDS tragedy. I have been taking a block of lectures on AIDS and Ethics at the local campus, with contributions from people like Jerry Coovadia, Ronald Nicholson, Felix Murove and Graham Lindegger. The idea was to provide a good understanding of the pandemic and then explore one of its most neglected facets - the unprecedented and difficult ethical challenges it creates.

From past experiences, I knew it would be a difficult theme. The sheer magnitude of the pandemic and its appallingly tragic human costs are deeply painful realities to confront, above all for young people whose generation is so directly involved. But universities are in the truth business, even when the truth is as unwelcome as hearing that HIV/AIDS is the wost medical disaster ever to strike humanity and a national emergency, that it is already radically changing the profile of our population, and leading to vastly increased numbers of young orphans with virtually nobody to care and provide for them, to mention just these grim facts.

Precisely because they are so grim, I also wanted to emphasise to my students that the very enormity of the pandemic also creates the need for a whole new kind of ethical response, a generation of unprecedented moral heroism, and that the potential for it lies in us all.

The idea that came to me was to invite my class to help create an AIDS Ethics Charter - a short statement of core values and practical actions that might help us and others to focus our thoughts, feelings and actions at this time of critical national need.

Lest anybody felt overwhelmed by the challenge, I quoted the encouraging words of anthropologist Margaret Mead - "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever does."

So, as we went along, we pooled ideas and, at the end, began to commit them to writing. The response was great and I now have a sheaf of suggestions, all of them rich in ethical concern and freshness of insight, to work through and edit. When that has been done, I will take the draft text back to the class for further inputs.

What then? ...

contd...[For the full document, click on the links on the top right-hand side of this page]