The case against mandatory HIV testing of pregnant women: the legal and public policy implications.

Why Mandatory HIV Testing of Pregnant Women and Newborns Must Fail: A Legal, Historical, and Public Policy Analysis Special Issue: Mandatory HIV Testing of Newborns and Their Mothers

Mandatory HIV testing of pregnant women: public health policy considerations and alternatives.

Laws requiring mandatory Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) testing for pregnant women have been contemplated by state legislatures since a ground breaking 1994 study showed that treating these women with antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy could decrease the chance of passing the disease to their children. Approximately 477 HIV-positive pregnant women participated in the AIDS Clinical Trial ...

Governance of HIV/AIDS: Implications for Health Sector Response

This paper reviews the essence of effective governance and importance of a multi-sectoral approach in generating health systems response to HIV/AIDS. This comprehensive approach highlights the importance of integrating reproductive sexual health programs and HIV prevention services, including peer education, life skills, and Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), for Prevention of Mother–to-Ch...

Mandatory testing of pregnant women and newborns: HIV, drug use, and welfare policy.

An emerging strand of thought portrays pregnant women with drug addiction and HIV infection as having a willful hostility towards their fetus. As a result, pregnant mothers with HIV or addictions are confronted with decreased funding for services and increased sanctions for positive toxicology tests. The rhetoric of blame towards “deviant” mothers has escalated to embrace poor mothers in genera...

An ethical analysis of the mandatory exclusion of immigrants who test HIV-positive.

On 20 September 2000, Canadian newspapers reported that Health Canada recommended to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) that testing all prospective immigrants for HIV, and excluding those testing positive, constitutes "the lowest health risk course of action." Subsequently, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration stated that CIC is indeed considering implementing mandatory HIV testin...