People at high risk of contracting AIDS must be interred until a cure is found.

I'd like to open by welcoming my opponent and extending my hopes for a great debate! I want to clarify the scope of my opponent's argument. Based on his claims, every single heroin-user, whore, and male homosexual has to be quarantined/removed from society and imprisoned until a cure for AIDS is found. He misrepresents his first source by omitting other risk groups and twisting the source's language. The National Health Service, in addition to explaining how HIV infects the body and how it is transmitted, lists several risk groups that my opponent has misrepresented, He claims, for example, that all gays need to be removed from society until HIV/AIDS can be cured. The NHS qualifies to men who have "unprotected sex with men" [1]. The operative word here is unprotected. HIV and AIDS can spread through unprotected sex between anyone - gay, straight, lesbian, etc. These "decent, law-abiding" heterosexuals are not exempt, and AIDS is not a magical virus that jumps to them, as my opponent's phrasing implies. Protected sex greatly decreases the risk of AIDS infection and is a method undertaken by individuals rather than society. While prostitution is a source for spreading HIV/AIDS around, as neither the prostitute nor the customer tend to verify whether or not the other person has AIDS, that is hardly grounds to detain all prostitutes. It is my opponent's burden of proof to prove that it is more beneficial for society to expend the resources necessary to identify, round up, and detain all of the prostitutes in society. Additionally, my opponent several other likely sources of HIV/AIDS. His first source also mentions "people who have lived or travelled extensively in Africa" and "people who receive a blood transfusion while in Africa, eastern Europe, the countries of the former Soviet Union, Asia, or central and southern America" [1]. Is my opponent claiming that all of these people also need to be detained? And what about, as UNICEF notes, the "2.1 million children" that are HIV-positive? [2]. Should all of these children also be detained? The Center for Disease Control estimates over one million people over the age of 13 live with an HIV infection [3]. Additionally, it lists other common avenues of infection, including breast feeding and pregnancy. Should all of them be detained as well? Should we detain pregnant women and women who breastfeed their babies? Even if we were to entertain my opponent's notion, does he have any idea how expensive such an operation would be? And what is his plan to round up and detain these people? Where would he put them all? My opponent seems to believe that if all heroin junkies, whores, and gays were removed from society, then the AIDS virus will somehow disappear. While it is true that all of these are high risk groups, especially gay and bisexual men, I argue that this has nothing to do with sexual orientation and more to do with unprotected sex (at least in the case of prostitutes and gays/bisexuals). Unprotected sex among any orientation comes with risks. According to the CDC, heterosexual encounters accounted for "25% of estimated new HIV infections in 2010" while injection drug users made up another 8% of new cases [3]. It is the responsibility of the individuals engaging in sex to practice it safely; it is not the responsibility of society to punish them for having sex. To extend my opponent's argument all the way - note that he did not claims this; I am simply furthering his argument - anyone who engages in sexual relationships could theoretically be detained. I certainly hope my opponent can imagine a facility big enough to house (nearly) the entire human population. Abstinence is the best method of avoiding HIV/AIDS but it is not a guarantee, as AIDS also spreads from sharing needles. My opponent has failed to demonstrate that it is the responsibility of society to monitor the sexual relations between people. He has failed to prove that, rather than encouraging abstinence and safe-sex through the usage of condoms, as well as educational programs instructing people about HIV/AIDS (all of these I provide as better alternatives to confinement), society should simply round up and detain individuals deemed risky - not even confirmed to have the disease, I stress, simply at risk of it - for an unspecified amount of time. This strikes me as not only an extreme reaction but a gross violation of a person's basic liberties. Additionally, even if my opponent's resolution were flawless, he has failed to provide a logistical and possible solution for this massive operation. For all of these reasons, I urge you to vote CON! Thank you. [1] http://www.nhs.uk... [2] http://www.unicefusa.org... [3] http://aids.gov...