We heard last week that many people, including a disconcerting percentage of young women, still think that some other women ask to be raped, not explicitly but just, in the minds of some observers, by the way that they dress & behave. Some even believe that a man who responds to this imagined invitation should not even be charged, let alone convicted.
Ray Gosling has told us, on tv, that he killed an ex-lover dying very painfully of AIDS in the days when this was the normal fate of those who contracted the disease. The lover had asked for, had extracted a promise that, his friend would do this service for him.
There is now a serious possibility that Gosling will be charged with murder. Many think that (if the facts are as claimed) then he should indeed be found guilty.
In the Gosling case there has been no comment, as far as I am aware, on the claim that the doctor deliberately turned a blind eye to his actions. Presumably the doctor also could now be charged if evidence can be found.
It is sobering to remember that in the early days of AIDS doctors & other medical professionals sometimes were afraid, too afraid to go near a patient for fear of getting infected themselves. There was also widespread fear in the general population about how the infection might spread.
One airline even claimed the right to refuse to employ male cabin crew, in defiance of the sex discrimination laws. The justification claimed was that, since men attracted to such jobs are disproportionately likely to be gay, & gays are disproportionately likely to be infected by HIV, then passengers would face an unacceptable risk.
Princess Diana showed true heroism in choosing to allow herself to be photographed holding the hand of a patient dying of AIDS.
It did not take the coming of AIDS to make the physician afraid. John Donne was acutely aware of it when he had relapsing fever in 1623:
Sickness is the greatest misery.
Its greatest misery is solitude, when the infectiousness of the disease deters from coming those who should assist. Even the physician scarce dares come. To be completely alone is a torment not even threatened in hell.
When I am dead and my body might infect the doctors have a remedy: they may bury me. But when I am but sick and I might infect they have no remedy but their absence and my isolation.It is an excuse to them that are great and pretend and yet are loath to come. It is an inhibition to those who would truly come, because they may be made carriers of the infection to others by their coming.
A long sickness will weary friends at last, but a pestilential sickness averts them from the beginning.
And then:
I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease. I see he fears and I fear with him. I overtake him, I overrun him in his fear and I go the faster because he makes his pace slow.
I fear the more because he disguises his fear and I see it with the more sharpness because he would not have me see it. He knows that his fears will not interfere with the practice and exercise of his art, but he knows that my fear may affect the working of his practice. I should contradict nature if I should deny that I feared this and if I should say that I feared death I should belie God.
But as my physicians fear does not stop him doing his job, neither does mine put me from receiving, from God and man and myself, spiritual and civil and moral assistances and consolations.
