Bush [Sr.] Calls for Compassion, and Cure, for AIDS Victims,
Los Angeles Times, Marlene Cimons, March 30, 1990.
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-30/news/mn-178_1_aids-organizations
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. . . In a speech that was unusually personal for Bush, he said that he and his wife, Barbara, "have had friends who have died of AIDS. Our love for them when they were sick and when they died was just as great and just as intense as for anyone lost to heart disease or cancer or accidents."
And he likened the heartbreak of babies infected with AIDS to the leukemia death of his own daughter, Robin, in 1953, two months before her fourth birthday.
"We asked the doctor the same question every HIV family must ask: Why? Why this was happening to our beautiful little girl?" he said at a meeting of the National Business Leadership Conference on AIDS. . .
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[
President Bush, Sr.]
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"Once disease strikes, we don't blame those who are suffering," he said. "We don't spurn the accident victim who didn't wear a seat belt. We don't reject the cancer patient who didn't quit smoking. We try to love them and care for them and comfort them. We do not fire them, or evict them or cancel their insurance." [Emphasis added]
He strongly endorsed House passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination in the private sector against the disabled, including those with HIV infection or fully developed AIDS. The Senate has already approved the measure.
"We're in a fight against a disease--not a fight against people," Bush said. "And we will not--and we must not in America--tolerate discrimination." . . .
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