AEGiS-APPJ: AIDS Policy and Ethics: Are We Using Enough Tools?

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1987. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS Policy and Ethics: Are We Using Enough Tools?

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 2, no. 4 (Fall-Winter 1987): 54-59
Harry Yeide, Jr.

As I begin these reflections on our encounter with AIDS. I find before me a flyer describing yet another medical ethics conference. It advertises two major categories of problems to consider: "justice based issues" and "autonomy based issues." This will hardly seem remarkable to many readers. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the moral debates on policy issues raised by the AIDS crisis fall into those two categories. Sometimes it seems as if the two are collapsed into one, for rights language is used to assert both the claims of justice and the protections of autonomy. However, we return to the justice/autonomy distinction when we try to sort out various rights claims. The purpose of this article is to call into question these habits of moral analysis, to suggest that other moral frames of reference might add depth to our moral reflection, and to suggest somewhat different emphases in future AIDS policy evaluation.
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