European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 8, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday july 8, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 comment Aryanna Quindle Naids needs Safe Medicine not discrimination from time to time a person comes along who represents an Issue in a Way that makes the Issue loom Large and feel personal. Kimberly Bergalis has become such a person. Bergalis who is 23, was infected with the aids virus by her dentist in what has turned out to be a worst Case scenario. There have been reports that he worked without gloves re used equipment and kept quiet about his condition so he would not jeopardize the Sale of his practice. Frail Beautiful and bitter Bergalis slow dying and her railing against it a a you ruined my life and my family so she wrote in a Recti Mintory letter to health officials a has inspired Public discussion about the risks and obligations of health service providers with the disease. The Kaboom that you hear is ideological principle colliding with personal feelings and the right to privacy of one group of americans running smack dab into the right to know of another. The question is How much doctors nurses and other health care workers Are obliged to Tell us about their medical condition and the answer so far is not much. In recent weeks both the american medical association and the american nurses association have rejected the idea of compulsory aids testing for their members. But the Issue will come up again and again As More worst Case scenarios emerge. Little will be heard of the Best cases the doctors who Are his positive take precautions and never infect a patient or the ones who immediately Stop performing invasive procedures when diagnosed. Few will remember that Bergalis dentist is the Only health care worker in the country known to have transmitted the aids virus to a patient or that the risk of a doctor becoming infected with the aids virus in the course of his duties is much greater than the risk of his transmitting it. What will increasingly be heard is this hypothetical q. You learn that your paediatrician has aids. What do you do a. Find another paediatrician. In my ideological world that is the wrong answer. The right answer would be to make sure that the doctor is meticulously careful uses double gloves and fresh instruments and washes hands assiduously. That is the answer that would encompass the Warp and Woof of a social fabric that allows for Mutual risk and advantage that says that everyone should give a Little the doctor with More protections the patient with a More open mind. In other words ask some Parr ends to put their children at some risk however Small for the Sake of principle and f. Buckley or. Kaboom. Principle and fairness have never been the watchwords of aids discussions. Fear uncertainty and blaming the victim continue to be the Rule. Not Long ago we were told that aids could not be transmitted by health workers. Now because of the Bergalis Case we know that it can. And in the great big risk Pool of life Many who can choose Between a doctor who is infected and one who is not Are Likely to choose the latter. Most doctors who announce that they have aids might As Well give up their practices they will lose patients More quickly than to cells. As always we yearn for Bright lines for guarantees for absolutes people look at photographs of Kimberly Bergalis baked Down to the Bones by illness and see themselves. But Bright lines Are neither available nor in the last analysis right. It is not simply that months can elapse Between infection and detection making testing unreliable. Imagine a United states in which an entire professional class will be required to be tested for disease and the results made known to All their clients and you imagine a United states qualitatively different than the country we have always known. The Bergalis Case has become the Center of a National debate. And the debate conjures up conundrums As troubling As any More difficult than most. Policing is in order by patients and by health care workers. Doctors must take precautions to protect their patients and themselves. Patients must demand those precautions and find other care if they arc not followed. Over the last decade we have Learned about Safe sex because of the aids epidemic. Now until a cure for the disease is found we will All learn about Safe Medicine. C Tho now York Timos chokers oppose applying ethics to the Law How do they live with themselves they the abortion firster screamed and yelled in Dallas charging that the 1984 Republican platform imposes a a litmus test on potential appointments to the Federal courts. The Reagan people insisted that to ask whether a judge intends to explore the intention of the people who wrote the Laws on which the supreme court is passing judgment is not a litmus test. It transpired that in 1987, Clarence Thomas gave a speech before the heritage foundation on the subject a Why Black americans should look to conservative of so far or should an african american who believes in conservative policies be denied Access to the courts in that speech he singled out for Praise Abraham Lincoln. Because said Thomas Lincoln attempted to animate his politics with a transcendent notion of right and wrong of political ethics. It was for this reason said Thomas that he could speak so eloquently on the subject of the dred Scott decision which reduced human beings a Blacks a to chattel. The practice of doing this is hardly dead Thomas went on. Martin Luther King or. Was always applying ethical visions to the Law and so had heritage foundation trustee Lewis Lehrman. A Lehr Many a recent essay in the american Spectator on the declaration of Independence and the meaning of the right to life is a splendid example of applying natural Law a said Thomas. What had Lewis Lehrman written a Are we against All reason and american history to suppose that the right to life As set Forth in the american Constitution May be lawfully eviscerated and amended by the supreme court a the answer to that question is obviously yes the court having disclosed a a right to privacy a acknowledging Derivatively the mothers right to subordinate to her inclination any right of the fetus. Now Lehrman was raised in the jewish Faith and is now a Catholic. But Judaism As Don Feder writes in the current Issue of National review a is the foundation for Christian opposition to there Are differences among orthodox jewish scholars in respect of foeticide but they Are Only differences on the question whether it is a a grave offence a e.g., lord Immanuel Jakobovits outgoing chief rabbi of the United kingdom or murder e.g., rabbi Hirsch Ginsberg executive director of the Union of orthodox rabbis. The notion that the View of the fetus As taught by Judaism and catholicism is so bizarre As to disqualify anyone who shares that View from effective service in the court is quite simply an act of judicial manipulation. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum a Ohio advises us that he intends a to press him judge Thomas very hard on his views on the whole subject of we detect Here the implicit approach of the abortion firster. It is that the supreme court in 1973, midwives a Brand new right. And that anyone who does not share the vision of the Blackmun majority in Roe is. Wade Isnit qualified to serve on the court. In taking this position the choices Are acting As True dog artists in a strange Way they Are sharing the vision praised by Thomas in his speech to the heritage foundation but taking it in their own direction. They Are saying in effect that the transcendent right to abort ought not to be subject to democratic discussion a or to judicial refinement. If Roe is. Wade were to be overturned tomorrow we Are invited to believe that the United states would perish from coat Hanger mutilations intellectual mortification and overpopulation. But All that the repeal of Roe would mean is that abortion policy is once again a subject for every state to decide for itself. In 1973, 49 states maintained pretty rigorous anti abortion Laws but no one predicts that with Roe reversed the status quo Ante would prevail. The great fear of the abortionists is that if the question were turned Back to the state legislators Many would not be attracted to uphold the newfound right of the Mojher by whim to kill the child. The american people the polls Tell us arc 20 percent doggedly in favor of Choice 20 percent doggedly in favor of life with 60 percent in favor of abortion but tending to think of it As a drastic act to be undertaken Only after considerable meditation. How would that translate into Law probably 40 states would be permissive perhaps 10 restrictive. As a practical matter future is. Roes would be Able to take a bus from their restrictive state to a permissive state get their abortion and be Back for a weekend tryst. The gestating opposition to Thomas is telling us that nobody who believes in the natural Law is qualified to serve on the supreme court a unless he understands that natural Law to License abortion on demand. C univ bal Pross Syndicate
