February 1999

On The Holy Innocents

A child’s death that could be prevented is more than a tragedy. Such a death dehumanizes each of us.

But most of us remain silent as helpless children die … Is our silence greater evidence of madness than Herod’s orders to slaughter the children? When we refuse to speak out as advocates for the millions of children infected with a virus that destroys their chance of life and their opportunity of being loved, are we any better than the man who ordered the murder of a few children? If there is a God, and He or She is a just God, will those of us who continue to fuel this infanticide with our frosty silence be damned for an eternity of watching each of these children, these fragile tender buds, die over and over and over again?

Gordon Nary, from an editorial in the Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (December 1998)