Is there a duty to provide medical care to HIV-infectious patients? Facts, fallacies, fairness, and the future

Abstract

The author examines and rejects two common types of argument in support of the duty to care for persons infected with HIV, namely, the view that exposure to this contagion has been accepted (individually or communally) by physicians, and the view that physicians can be held to a high standard of moral conduct that encompasses a substantial degree of self-sacrifice. He suggests rather that the duty to care for the HIV-infectious patient is grounded in the harm that would ensue were discrimination to be permitted, and in fairness to those members of the medical profession who refuse to discriminate.