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

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

Few images arouse as much emotion as that of a sick child. The desire to do anything to help that child can be powerful and can cause people to take extreme measures to make the child well, especially when the illness is a fatal one, like AIDS. Recent scientific studies have shown that treating HIV-positive mothers during pregnancy can decrease the likelihood of transmission to the infant. Thes...

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

The necessity of HIV testing in Iranian pregnant women and its ethical considerations

A high number of HIV positive babies are born each year, whereas by highly effective preventive measures, the risk of mother-to-child transmission can be decreased significantly. There are different methods (for example mandatory versus voluntary) for HIV screening in pregnant women, but there are debates on conducting HIV testing by these methods. One of the most important issues in this field...

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...

Implementation of co-trimoxazole preventive therapy policy for malaria in HIV-infected pregnant women in the public health facilities in Tanzania

BACKGROUND In 2011, Tanzania adopted a policy for provision of daily co-trimoxazole prophylaxis to HIV-infected pregnant women for prevention of malaria and other opportunistic infections. As per the policy, HIV-infected pregnant women should not be given sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) for intermittent preventive therapy. The challenges associated with this policy change and the extent to which...