The Politics of AIDS

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the most hindering part of the opposition between conservatives and liberals in the fight against AIDS was a psychological one. It looks at how the conservative mindset was one of idealistic concern for the moral crisis brought out by AIDS and how the liberal mindset was more of a concern for the environmental crisis that also played a part in it. It also discusses how fighting each other over issues of morality and social problems should have been replaced by the fight for the preservation of human life.

From the Paper:

"The first cases of AIDS were identified in San Francisco and New York city. It seemed initially only to affect the gay community and not much else was known about it. Though it revealed itself in the form of infections such as Pneumonia, no one agreed yet upon where it came from, how it was transmitted, and what should be done to contain it. By 1982, however, it was taking lives of gays and heterosexuals alike. From the political right, there was pressure to categorize AIDS as an epidemic caused by what people perceived to be a decay of morality in America. From the political left, people were attributing it to the increasing damage to the environment due to mass consumerism and bomb warfare. Because of these opposing views, the process of containing the disease was stunted, as it continued to kill what would become millions of people."

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