DEB sent this article along over email. The Headline reads: "Manatee Boy Has AIDS; Mother Charged." My first thought was: what would some poor kid have to look like to earn that nickname?
It turns out, though, that Manatee is the name of a county in Florida. The issue raised by the article is whether or not the mother's care for the child constitutes felony neglect. According to the article, the mother was aware she had HIV before giving birth. Evidently, by following a certain regimen of retroviral drugs, it is possible to give birth without passing the virus on to the baby (in fact, if proper care is taken, it is extremely uncommon for the mother to pass the disease along to the baby). The mother took all of the precautions for her first baby, but not the second. Her reason? She did not want the baby's father to know that she was HIV positive.
In Florida it is a crime for someone who knows they have HIV to have sex with anyone without telling them. Also, "under Florida child-neglect laws, parents can be charged with failing to seek medicine or medical services 'that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of a child.'"
These laws seem are extremely justifiable to me. Are there any compelling civil liberty arguments that disagree?
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