Abstract

In 1990, Congress established the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHP). The program has since expanded to cover numerous treatments and support services. It’s hard to overstate how transformative RWHP has been, but hundreds of thousands of other people had died from the same condition White had, so why did politicians wait to enact serious AIDS healthcare? Bluntly, White’s AIDS education activism was sympathetic because he embodied a “moral innocence,” a quality the public did not usually extend to gay men, intravenous drug users, or others who suffered from HIV/AIDS. I ask two questions about this delayed political support. First, are there any moral problems with appealing to moral innocence, even if it secures public support and medical care, by hierarchically ranking lives as more or less sympathetic? Second, can we reduce or eliminate these problems, or are they a necessary cost to getting the public to care about marginalized communities?