Sign on to oppose Pennsylvania's HB 103
Please join the PA HIV Justice Alliance, Positive Women's Network-USA and the Sero Project in asking Governor Wolf to veto a dangerous Pennsylvania bill, HB 103, that would create two new, unnecessary and broadly applicable felony offenses and subject people with a communicable disease, such as HIV, chicken pox and COVID-19, to harsher penalties under law. 

It would give police more tools to criminalize Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color when they interact with the police. Law enforcement already has too many ways to punish us. They don't need more tools to surveil, criminalize and incarcerate people who are sick.

The letter is linked here.

Background on the bill: HB 103 would create two new felony offenses:

  1. A third-degree felony offense for the intentional or attempted act of throwing, tossing, spitting, or expelling saliva, blood, seminal fluid, urine, or feces at a police officer, punishable by up to 7 years in prison and $15,000 in fines 

  2. A second-degree felony offense if (1) a person knows, should have known, or believed that the fluid or material was infected by a reportable communicable disease; and (2) that the communicable disease was transmissible by the saliva or other bodily fluid that was used—or attempted to be used—against the officer, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines

As HB 103 is written, someone could face up to 7 years in prison for simply spitting in the direction of a police officer. If they have a communicable disease, they could be punished with up to a decade in prison. The penalties proposed are wildly disproportionate to the action that HB 103 criminalizes. This legislation is not about "protecting" the police. Offenses against police officers already carry serious penalties. Rather HB 103 is about expanding police power to arrest people who come in contact with law enforcement, which will disproportionately harm Black, Latinx and Indigenous people, low income and working class communities, and LGBTQ communities who are already over-policed.

Moreover, HB 103 is bad public health policy. The provision that would create a second degree felony for people with a “reportable disease" has the trappings of antiquated, harmful, and stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws (while being more broadly applicable to any "reportable disease"). It does not require specific intent to transmit, substantial risk of transmission, or proof of transmission of the "reportable disease." Indeed, it does not even require actual contact with saliva or bodily fluids. By targeting people with a communicable disease for more severe penalties under law, HB 103 is discriminatory and stigmatizing. This approach to criminalizing people with health conditions only harms our state’s public health efforts.

Please help us to demand that Governor Wolf veto HB 103 by filling in this form.

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