Should People Who Knowingly Spread Dangerous STD's Be Prosecuted?

According to a recent international survey of women conducted by WomanSavers.com, 49 percent of women say they have been infected unknowingly with an STD (sexually transmitted disease) by their partner. Statistics from the American Social Health Association state that one in five people in the United States has an STD.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 50% of sexually active men and women will contract an HPV (Human Papillomavirus) infection during their lives. This is particularly dangerous because men can carry and transmit this disease without showing any symptoms or knowledge of their own infection. HPV is growing at epidemic proportions and there is no known cure. What is particularly dangerous to women is the growing number of women who contract cervical cancer from HPV. In 2004, the American Cancer Society estimated that nearly 40% of women who develop cervical cancer caused from HPV will die from this disease.

In the UK, the number of people diagnosed with STD's has risen by 63 percent, according to the Health Protection Agency, with an alarming rise in diseases previously thought to be under control. Cases of syphilis show the most dramatic increase, with a rise of 1,607 percent. Gonorrhea is up 46 percent, Herpes is up 31 percent, and cases of genital warts have risen by 22 percent. Even more alarming, new cases of HIV have tripled. The most at risk are young people ages 16 to 19, with 45 percent of Gonorrhea cases being diagnosed among teenagers.

Stephany Alexander, online dating and relationship expert and author of Sex, Lies and the Internet, a new book warning about the dangers of internet dating, noted an alarming correlation between the rising popularity of internet dating and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.