Pre-marital Ills

There has been recent suggestions by the government that all muslims should go for mandatory pre-marital HIV screening. I would go further and actually suggest that everyone, muslim and non-muslim, go for pre-marital HIV screening. In fact, I would suggest that we do not stop at HIV screening but to screen for a whole host of diseases and genetic anomalies, anything that may cause problems in the marriage later.

These days, the local labs like PathLab, do provide various pre-marital health check packages that range from the dirt cheap to the really expensive. It all depends on the battery of tests the couple would like to do. All it takes is a trip to the local GP to extract some biological samples, which are then sent to them for analysis. However, even this good practice is not often performed by regular couples.

There are a host of genetic incompatibilities that can be detected through some of these tests. The couple can then be told of their chances in having children who may end up developing certain illnesses. However, all this information should be presented to the couple and the final decision on whether or not they should wed is still up to the couple. I personally believe that this should be the right thing to do.

However, our Perak MB believes that people with HIV should not marry. He thinks that it is a gross error to allow someone very sick like this to marry. I think that he must have mush for brains. Personally, I wonder what sort of medical pre-conditions he might actually suffer from considering that most of us suffer from some sort of ailment that may one day kill us.

Furthermore, he suggests that a HIV couple will definitely copulate and have HIV infected babies, he is grossly misinformed. First of all, it is perfectly possible for people to engage in sexual intercourse without having babies. You know, there is something called contraception. It is kind of sad that the MB is probably ignorant about their use. Secondly, even if the parents were HIV positive, the baby need not necessarily be infected. According to wikipedia, perinatal transmission of HIV is 25% in the absence of treatment and 1% with the right treatment and tools in place.

Then, he goes even further and to suggest that HIV carriers should be quarantined away and everything should be done to treat them. I think that he deserves to receive the ‘straight-jacket award’ for making this particular nutty statement. One really needs to wonder what kind of gestapo-esque MB did the Perak people end up with. It seems that our local politicians lack certain quality, regardless of which side of the house they come from.

Dude, you really need to do your homework before mouthing off and exposing the ignorant facist that you are.

PS: Of course, all this assumes that the news reporting has been accurate. For some unfathomable reason, our politicians are so often misquoted by the press.