AIDS: Emerging Moral Questions

As theologian Henri Nouwen has pointed out, the opposite of love is not hate; it is fear. Nowhere is the fear which strips us of our capacity to behave rationally better evidenced than in relation to AIDS. Only as we allow ourselves to be moved from what Nouwen calls the house of fear into the house of love will responsible answers begin to be formulated to the emerging moral questions presented by AIDS. The questions are threefold. To those potentially at risk for AIDS or actually infected with it, it raises questions about honesty and love in sexual relations. For caregivers, it raises questions about the nature of our professional obligations. And for society at large, it raises questions about confidentiality and scapegoating. It is the author's contention that an experience of the divine love-unconditional, unmerited, unbounded-is alone sufficient to move us from fear, and its responses to AIDS, to a more loving (and courageous) stance. Only thus will we begin-whether as victims of AIDS, as caregivers, or as members of society at large-to exercise moral responsibility with respect to this dread disease.