At first thought, this feels like a logical step in the prevention of AIDS. Afterall, in a country where the majority of the population is illiterate, and more than half the marriages are brokered between parents who have little to no knowledge about the grooms or brides' sexual history, perhaps this would enlighten respective parties. But no matter how you dice it, it is in the end an invasion of personal privacy. It's a slippery slope to what the government can legislate in our personal lives. Will we also have to at some point, get a Hepatitis C test, or perhaps even an Avian Flu test or how about a mental competency assessment? Marriage is a personal decision between two individuals and the government does not have the right to legislate any aspect of it. Ultimately however, we have to answer the question, will this pretesting for AIDS prevent AIDS or its spread? That afterall is the aim of us giving up our rights for the "greater goods". Well, this is as counter-productive as banning ultrasounds determining gender inorder to prevent foeticide. Because in a country like India, where anything can be bought for a price, people determined to know the gender found a way to bribe ultrasound technicians to reveal the gender to them. Foeticide remains as high as ever in India. In a similar vien, all that this legislation will do, is make a few laboratory peons a little richer. I am always surprised that only in India can we find a way to band-aid the problem rather than go to the source and try to heal it. The right way to tackle AIDS is to spread awareness about it; how it is spread, how its spread can be prevented and how it can treated, to a limited extent, if contracted. Making people give up their fundamental rights to privacy is not the answer.
Gabe Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=64528 HIV test to be made mandatory for marriage registration in Goa
