Pennsylvania has erased the last law that singled out people living with HIV for harsher criminal punishment. Gov. Josh Shapiro signed Senate Bill 45 into law on Monday, July 20, as part of a batch of two dozen bipartisan bills. The measure, now Act 41 of 2026, strips HIV-specific language from the state’s criminal code.
Advocates, lawmakers, and medical professionals had gathered at Philadelphia FIGHT on July 16, days before the signing, to press for the reform. Watch the full press conference below.
What the new law does
Under the old statute, a person living with HIV could be charged with a felony for prostitution-related offenses that would otherwise be a misdemeanor, regardless of whether transmission was even possible. SB45 eliminates that sentencing enhancement, the last HIV-specific provision in the state’s criminal code.
The measure mirrors House Bill 632, long championed by State Rep. Ben Waxman, D-Philadelphia. After the House provision stalled in the Senate, advocates secured the language inside SB45. The bill passed the House unanimously on July 12 and drew a single “no” vote in the Senate before reaching Shapiro’s desk.
Years of advocacy behind a rare bipartisan win
“This is the result of years of relentless advocacy by people living with HIV, public health experts and community organizations who refused to accept laws rooted in fear mongering and discrimination rather than science,” Waxman said. “Now, Pennsylvania is choosing compassion, evidence and justice over stigma.”
Ronda Goldfein, executive director of the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, was blunt about why the old law never worked. Criminal penalties for living with HIV, she said, have never served an effective law enforcement purpose, and no credible research has ever linked them to reduced transmission. In the more than 30 years the enhancement sat on the books, it was rarely charged.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, who partnered with Waxman on the effort, called the vote historic. “The stigma that follows our neighbors living with HIV has hampered testing and puts us further away from eradicating this disease in our lifetime,” he said. “HIV is not a crime.”
Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau, who spoke at the FIGHT event, framed it plainly: “By removing these outdated messages from our laws, Pennsylvania is sending a message to residents that no one should face punishment simply because of a medical diagnosis.”
Advances in treatment underpin the change. With antiretroviral therapy, people living with HIV can reach an undetectable viral load, which prevents sexual transmission, while living long, healthy lives.
A second, quieter reform
Beyond the HIV language, SB45 reshapes how Pennsylvania treats sex work. It swaps stigmatizing terminology for person-first language and moves prostitution-related offenses out of the “public indecency” section of the crimes code and into the “human trafficking” section, while increasing penalties aimed at traffickers and buyers rather than sellers.
What it means
With Shapiro’s signature, Pennsylvania removes the final reference to HIV in its criminal code, joining a growing number of states that have repealed or modernized HIV-specific criminal statutes in step with advances in prevention and treatment.
Joining Waxman, Kenyatta, and Landau at Philadelphia FIGHT were State Rep. Andre D. Carroll, D-Philadelphia; Dr. Jay Kostman of Philadelphia FIGHT; and Waheedah Shabazz-El, co-chair of the Pennsylvania HIV Justice Alliance and a Philadelphia FIGHT goodwill ambassador.
Signing details via the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office.