Mandatory HIV/AIDS testing for Pregnant Woman

Today, anti retroviral therapies ar being highly-developed by several manu occurrenceurers, in a bid to fin eithery be sufficient to reduce the number of instances of the transmission of forgiving immunodeficiency virus from bewilder to churl. The drug AZT, for example, has been successful at bringing the rate of such(prenominal) manoeuver transmissions stamp come forth, and this has disposed(p) rise to a general feeling that if examination of big(predicate) women for the battlefront of the dreaded help virus were to be made authorization, then perhaps umpteen an(prenominal) lives could be survive. It moldiness be remembered that onward the year 1994, when assist became renowned for its rival on the human body, not untold was known near the malady, often referred to as the scourge of modern man, and zero point at all was known about the transmission of this disease from a receive to her unhatched fry.It was in late 1994 that an the Statesn clinical t rial known as ACTG 076 was satisfactory to plant the assumption that when a drug AZT was administered to a human immunodeficiency virus positive big(predicate) char, and also to her rape like a shot after its birth, it was able to decline the rate of transmission from a uplifted of 25 % to a low of 8 %. The trial was based on the accompaniment that the meaning(a) char muliebrityhood had to be given the drug during her pregnancy, during her labor, during her deli rattling, and for the immature child during his runner six weeks of life.Immediately after the results of this trial were published, the US Public Health Service recommended that all human immunodeficiency virus positive expectant women must(prenominal)(prenominal) be given the drug, especially to those women who show a likelihood of developing the disease. This was to intromit women who had never absorbn drugs of any soma against human immunodeficiency virus acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The admi nistration of the drug, of course, involved an impingement of the womans basic privacy, and this was whatsoeverthing that created a stir at the time. Such attack of privacy was not to be tolerated. (Yovetich)As say earlier, making human immunodeficiency virus scrutiny mandatory for a gravid woman, in the rely that the womans unborn child could be given a breach and more productive and disease idle life was not as dewy-eyed an issue as it may brace sounded at the time. There was much immunity from several different quarters. The main flat coat for the opposite word was that the womans nonpublic life would be exposed, as human immunodeficiency virus was a disease that was clothed in much secrecy, and it still is today. Defenders of privacy of a human being fought a ample war to oppose mandatory exam of all with child(predicate) women for the dreaded aid/human immunodeficiency virus virus.To tryout a woman against her will, and then inform her that she had back up , and that she must take the drug so that her unborn child would not develop the disease would be a rather intrusive manner to follow, felt privacy defenders, purge if such exam meant that the risk of transmission to some oppositewises would be reduced, and many lives could be saved in the coming(prenominal). However, the several advances in science done the years until today suck in prompted many individuals to reconsider the issue today.Several people pick up themselves today, argon the potential benefits of mandatory scrutiny for support/human immunodeficiency virus in some contexts outweighing the privacy interests? Or, on the other hand, is such an invasion of privacy completely warrant if the unborn child could be saved from a life of disease and ultimate death?It must be illustrious that several experiments and trials befool been able to prove beyond a reasonable interrogation that when a meaning(a) woman is time-tested for AIDS, and it is found that she is human immunodeficiency virus positive, and she is then offered the drug that would combat the transmission of the disease to her unborn child, and she takes up the offer, then the take a chances of the unborn fetus being born with full pursy AIDS would be reduced dramatically.Statistics have revealed that such therapy would successful bring checkmate the rate of transmission from a higher(prenominal) of a one on tetrad chance, to a one in 50 chance. Such evidence has prompted a blossom of proposals on the part of the governments to make the interrogatory of human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS mandatory for a pregnant woman. To date, it must be observe that only the legislatures of New York and Connecticut have been able to sanction mandatory programs that would oblige HIV tests on a pregnant woman, without her comply, wherein she would be able to turn down the offer of testing put aside to her.Although it may be true that at prototypal glance, one would not be able to u nderstand why anyone would deprivation to turn down an offer to save their unborn child, it is indeed a fact that science today has not except advanced so far as to absolutely guarantee that the young pregnant woman would not channel on the disease to her child, like for example, statistics argon able to prove that even if a pregnant woman has no medication at all for her AIDS, she still has only a one in four chance of transmitting the virus to her unborn child.This is because of the aboveboard fact that a fetch transmits the disease to her child during the process of delivery, which is the time when the sister would be exposed to the blood of his mother, without the shield of the umbilical cord that has connected him to his mother all the nine months. In other words, statistics prove that intra-uterine transmission, that is, transference of the virus beforehand delivery, of AIDS to the unborn babe is sooner rare, and it does not take place in one out of four cases. AIDS a nd HIV can also be transmitted to the child after its birth, by means of breast feeding.Furthermore, it is important to remember that when an babe is born to an HIV-positive mother, HIV-antibody tests carried out on the newborn will always turn out to be positive, for the simple reason that the baby has would have acquire the HIV antibodies of its mother automatically during the birth and delivery processes, and this cannot be taken to mean that the newborn is infected with AIDS and HIV. In these cases, the antibodies that the baby has inherited would stay in his body for the first few months of his life, after which it would be replaced with his own. If the HIV testing is done on the infant at this stage, it would reveal the actual emplacement of the child, rather than if it were to be done immediately after birth, which would often mislead the persons involved. (The ACLU on HIV testing of pregnant women and newborns 2001)It is a sad fact indeed that the entropy on AIDS in Ame rica and in Canada indicated that almost 766 out of 824 pregnant and HIV infected women from twenty fin conveys of the coupled States of America were aware of their HIV status much before their deliveries, til now there are about 280 to 370 peri-natal HIV transmissions in the country, every year. Researchers and scientists state repeatedly that the only way in which to declare this dismal state of affairs would be to make HIV/AIDS testing mandatory for pregnant woman, despite opposition from several quarters.In Canada, for example, three different HIV testing approaches have been assayed, and medical records and applicable data have shown without doubt that the so called opt-in or voluntary testing approach, in which a pregnant woman is offered pre-HIV test counseling, and must give her consent voluntarily to an HIV test is generally connect with lower testing rates than the opt-out voluntary testing approach, in which the woman, who has had HIV/AIDS counseling, may choose to refuse HIV testing. As a offspring of fact, even the mandatory newborn HIV testing approach proved to be ineffective, and the testing rates were much lower than expected, although they were cleanse than the opt-in testing method acting. (HIV testing among pregnant women, United States and Canada 1998 to 2001 2002)Today, with the governments across the humans, especially in developed countries responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, women search to be at the center of all the attention, and increasingly, global efforts at AIDS stripe seem to center on women, especially pregnant women who may transmit the dreaded AIDS virus to their unborn child, either before or after delivery. Most governments are taking advantage of the fact that medicines and drugs are available today, which would be able to efficaciously block the transmission of the virus to an infant, and these governments are using the drugs to make sure that the AIDS virus would not spread far and wide. One such govern ment orifice is the PMTCT Program, or the Prevention of induce to Child Transmission Program.It must be stated here that although the benefits of this and other similar programs may be tremendous, it is very important that the government takes into consideration the experiences of a pregnant woman who lives with AIDS, and the trauma that she undergoes as a direct result. The government must also learn to adopt a human make ups perspective when it deals with a pregnant woman, and issues that concern her privacy. As a matter of fact, several governments seem to have forgotten, state human rights personnel, about the woman with AIDS, so keen are they on the prevention of the transmission of AIDS to the unborn child.Herein lies the crux of the issue if the woman were to be hard-boiled as a patient, who is suffering from a dreaded and fatal disease, who needs give-and-take for the disease, and who has human rights as an individual, then it would be infinitely easier to deal with th e issue. In other words, if the governments were to respect the woman who is harboring the AIDS virus, and conduct her with basic human dignity and respect, it would batten down that her unborn child who is the future citizen of the country, and the future of his family would be better served.When this is taken in light of the fact that women are three times as likely as men to develop HIV/AIDS, and that a woman is physiologically more sensitised than a man to developing the contagion through vaginal intercourse, it would seem that agree a woman the deference that she deserves would be the best approach to the problem. In certain(prenominal) under developed countries, women have been report to say that when they were diagnosed with AIDS, they were asked to abort their unborn fetuses, as they supposedly had no right to pass on the infection to their unborn baby. In such cases, it is evident that the feelings and the rights of the woman were not considered in any way, and this i s by no means uncommon.Although PMTCT Programs have today gained in popularity, and it is being touted across the world as being the one surefire method to control AIDS, these programs do implicate a certain invasion of the privacy and dignity of the woman concerned, especially in countries where the woman is denied the right to give informed consent to HIV/AIDS testing and treatment, belike because of a lack of education, and she is also denied her right to confidentiality. When this is taken in context of the imperfection associated with AIDS in several countries, it is unadorned that the program must be fine-tune and restated, if it were to be a success. (Pregnant woman life with HIV n.d)To conclude, it must be verbalise that although mandatory testing for HIV/AIDS may be an excellent nous and that it would help prevent the transmission of the virus to a womans unborn child, the program must be implemented while keeping in soul the human rights, the right to confidentiali ty, and the basic human rights of the woman suffering form the disease. If this were to be done, then one can hold back forward to a world in which the awful HIV/AIDS virus would be eliminated, and the world would be a safe place once more.Works citedYovetich, Tasha making it mandatory, should HIV tests be required for pregnant women? The Canadian Womens Health meshwork (1999) 13 December 2007The ACLU on HIV testing of pregnant women and newborns HIV testing of pregnant women and newborns (2001) 13 December 2007HIV testing among pregnant women, United States and Canada 1998 to 2001 MMWR each week (2002) 13 December 2007Pregnant woman living with HIV Reproductive Right.org 13 December 2007 (n.d)