Background: House Bill 1217 would repeal the North Dakota law that criminalizes the willful transfer of body fluid containing the HIV virus.
Our position: The ACLU of North Dakota supports House Bill 1217. Advances in medical treatment mean that an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it seemed to be in the 1980s. People living with HIV are thriving in every walk of life. Nonetheless, people living with HIV continue to suffer the effects of stigma, prejudice, and misunderstanding about HIV.Criminalizing the transfer of body fluid containing the HIV virus is not an effective public health response to continue to reduce the transmission rates within our communities.
