ABSTRACT
There is an entire debate which needs to consider where duty ends and where moral obligations end. There is a growing school of thought which attempts to explore HIV issues in relation to the rights and responsibilities debate. This debate sets up a corresponding social contract where rights need to be appreciated not for their own merit, but within a reciprocal framework of corresponding responsibilities. This is often explored in terms of safe sex, infection and culpability for infecting others. The hidden notions underlying this debate raise many problems. For example, the debate may claim that individuals with HIV may only have rights to move and travel to a country if they undertake reciprocal obligations not to infect others whilst in that country. Such an argument may have a surface appeal, but it overlooks the two-way nature of infection, namely that unsafe sex requires more than one partner. It also does not account for acts such as rape and abuse.
