[kamaal]

Keeping you alive is not the same as living. A few would like to stay in situation where you can't do 99% of the things other humans do.

Its very common in a lot of of places in the world to ask for euthanasia in case of such diseases.

[Fomite]

Honestly, at this point HAART treatments for HIV are giving folks a near natural lifespan, and the major threats to their health are becoming diseases of old age - cancer and the like. And the years they have are fully functional.

Compared to a chronic, wasting disease that will take years of opportunistic infections before you die, that's damned good.

[parasubvert]

Magic Johnson and Andrew Sullivan have had HIV for over 20 years and seem to be handling it fairly well. Certainly a harder life than most, but that's not stopping them from living a full life.