Renee Long
February 14th, 2013
ENC 1102
The Effects on Quarantine In Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Kathryn Staiano-Ross describes the necessities of effectively quarantining others with a highly infectious disease in regard to the safety of others and being able to save lives. In regards to Human Dignity, this action would exclude those affected from being accepted in society while still considering the moral actions others considered in Epstein’s ideas. I believe that in the event of a worldwide pandemic, a mass quarantine prevention strategy would prove to be effective against the spread of disease, but could potentially lead to major crimes against humanity, as humans desire personal contact and the acknowledgment of their human dignity.
To quarantine a person would be to completely isolate them from society as explained in Kathryn’s article. This can be done at a worldwide level with enough government interaction and I believe it would be a global catastrophe. As described in Fukuyama’s Human Dignity, the mass moral contradiction would be overwhelming for officials. People would be fighting against their state of forced incarceration while battling their disease and trying to pursue the same rights as those that aren’t infected. In AIDS Inc., “The persistent denial of AIDS in South Africa was deeply disturbing”(Epstein 115). Showing how many Africans are surrounded by HIV infected people and almost show a state of indifference, sure the South Africans showed a more worried state of mind than the northern Africans but the matter of the subject is that they held less disease accountability and their ignorance in its possible spread caused it to rise and then hardly fall at a steady rate again. Here in the States, when people find out about a certain individual with the disease they are likely to be “quarantined” socially. Ross describes quarantine as “[…]the archetypal conflict that confronts public
Cited: Barrios, Barclay. Fukuyama Francis, Emerging: Contemporary Readings For Writers, Human Dignity, Bedford/St.Martins, 2010 Barrios, Barclay. Helen Epstein, Emerging: Contemporary Readings For Writers, AIDS, INC., Bedford/St.Martins, 2010 Staiano-Ross, Kathryn, Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG