AIDS Activist Expects Others to Take the Risks
* I read the Los Angeles Times article on Dr. Susan Lawrence (Dec. 13) and couldn’t believe my eyes.
Lawrence and some of her associates filed a complaint against the Mumaw Funeral Home for not providing services for people who died of AIDS-related diseases, blaming a lack of education of the disease for this kind of reaction. Mr. Mumaw said he did not want to accept any level of risk of contracting AIDS because he was a single parent of small children.
That reason wasn’t good enough to keep federal officials from saying that his stance was illegal and he must accept the risk if he wanted to stay in business. The article then stated Dr. Lawrence and her husband, a man with AIDS, decided not to have sex, even with the protection of a condom, because “we were not willing to tolerate any risk.”
I find it incredible this well-informed AIDS activist expects other people to assume risks that she herself won’t. Maybe a thin layer of latex, the same material that protects Mr. Mumaw from AIDS-infected body fluids, isn’t the protection the “experts” would have us believe.
WILLIAM G. LEWIS
Lancaster
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