Senate Approves Bill Requiring Discharge for GIs With HIV

The Senate on Friday approved a $265-billion defense bill that includes a controversial requirement for service personnel carrying the AIDS virus to be discharged.

The vote was 56 to 34 with Democrats casting most of the votes against it.

Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said discharging people with HIV would create a human tragedy for no justifiable cause.

Nunn told the Senate there were 1,150 service members with the human immunodeficiency virus among 1.4 million on active duty and they constituted only 20% of those barred from duty because of health problems. Under the bill they would be discharged within six months.

Nunn attacked the AIDS directive as “punitive actions . . . that do not make sense from any point of view.” He also said the discharges would harm families, waste an investment in military training and “cause a large human tragedy for no justifiable reason.”

The White House said President Clinton will sign the bill but will try to repeal the controversial provision, adding that it is also considering a legal challenge to the measure. The president vetoed an earlier defense measure that contained provisions he found unacceptable.

Congressional negotiators stripped out some of those controversial parts of the bill, but refused to yield on the one that requires discharge within six months of personnel found to have the AIDS virus. They also retained a ban on military hospitals performing some abortions, a move opposed by Clinton.

Stripped from the bill were provisions requiring a missile defense system to protect all 50 U.S. states by the year 2003 and curbing presidential authority to send troops into U.N. peacekeeping operations.