Małżeństwo i prokreacja w kontekście zagrożenia AIDS

Abstract

AIDS has consequences in many different areas of human life. Therefore, reflection on AIDS must take into account social, legal, medical and to a very large extent also moral problems. There is no shortage in the literature of medical or even purely moral studies. Not much has been written, however, about the problems caused by the disease for marriage and procreation, where it has led to substantively new situations. Serious problems may arise already at the stage of choice of a spouse, and they may also concern the contracting of marriage, the validity of the matrimonial bond, and the realization of the full dimensions of the matrimonial union in body and spirit. The proportions of the danger become especially clear once we realize that AIDS is transmitted most dynamically in that sphere of married life in which the spouses find natural support for their mutual bond. The scale of the danger posed by the HIV virus calls for adequate preventive actions, particularly in the course of (both long-term and immediate) preparation for marriage. However, there is nothing to justify imposing any restrictions (in the form of either legal or moral sanctions) on marriage involving carriers of the disease. Nor is it possible to prohibit such spouses from taking advantage of their rights and fulfilling their duties. What is needed is competent advice. The decision to get married and to fulfil the procreative function ultimately depends on the spouses themeselves, and it is their duty to consider their situation in their own conscience and before God. In the face of immediate danger each spouse, in the spirit of responsibility and love, ought to show concern for the protection of his or her own health, and of the health of the other spouse and the children. The requirements of sexual ethics do not permit the use of condoms as a means of protection. Indeed, despite health services' recommendations, the condom is not the ideal protective device: it is highly unreliable and fails in about 30 per cent of cases.