Historical and Analytical Overview of Policy Issues Affecting Women Living with AIDS: A Blueprint for Learning from Our Past

Abstract

In this paper I attempt to place the policy issues currently affecting women in the HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) epidemic in an historical context and to use this information to propose a strategy for the development of sound policy for women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The first part provides a brief overview of the history of women in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. The second part reviews some of the key policy issues currently facing women living with HIV. In the third part, I use the paradigm of mandatory testing of pregnant women and newborns as a means of analyzing the reasons why women living with HIV face issues that frequently are different from those faced by men. Finally, I propose a few guidelines that have the promise of leading to more equitable solutions to problems faced by women in the epidemic.