Is the DBC a special case? Did either pole of our political opinion groups favor keeping the dying from unapproved treatments? I suspect most people were (are) sympathetic to so many young people dying from HIV/AIDS and, once they saw how the law worked, thought the law was unreasonable. It served no positive good for anyone. Everyone agreed on changing a bad law.
The movie did succeed in changing minds about people with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS was viewed by some as a consequence of behaviors unpopular with many. The bureaucrats who wrote the law weren’t going to change the cultural behaviors they didn’t like by denying therapy to the afflicted.
A good story allows people you don’t know and/or understand to show you their humanity from a different perspective than your own. We often don’t like what we don’t know or understand and react against it. A good story can show us a different perspective than what our life experience has been. It can wise us up.
That's a great introduction and analysis, and I'm looking forward to installment 2.
What's encouraging to me is that at the time, AIDS was, to some, almost a punishment from on high for having sinned. But that judgement was either put aside by many of those who believe that, or accepted that the principle of "right to try" was one of universal value irrespective of the particulars of this specific case.
Either way, folks did come together to make a huge difference for the better in how our system works.
Is the DBC a special case? Did either pole of our political opinion groups favor keeping the dying from unapproved treatments? I suspect most people were (are) sympathetic to so many young people dying from HIV/AIDS and, once they saw how the law worked, thought the law was unreasonable. It served no positive good for anyone. Everyone agreed on changing a bad law.
The movie did succeed in changing minds about people with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS was viewed by some as a consequence of behaviors unpopular with many. The bureaucrats who wrote the law weren’t going to change the cultural behaviors they didn’t like by denying therapy to the afflicted.
A good story allows people you don’t know and/or understand to show you their humanity from a different perspective than your own. We often don’t like what we don’t know or understand and react against it. A good story can show us a different perspective than what our life experience has been. It can wise us up.
That's a great introduction and analysis, and I'm looking forward to installment 2.
What's encouraging to me is that at the time, AIDS was, to some, almost a punishment from on high for having sinned. But that judgement was either put aside by many of those who believe that, or accepted that the principle of "right to try" was one of universal value irrespective of the particulars of this specific case.
Either way, folks did come together to make a huge difference for the better in how our system works.