Women living with HIV/AIDS face obstacles in receiving reproductive health care

The number of women living with HIV has risen to 50 percent of the global total. Compounding this tragedy is the widespread stigmatization of women living with HIV/AIDS, which often results in their being pushed to the back of the line for receiving health care.

December 1 is observed around the globe as World AIDS Day. This year's theme —"Live and Let Live" — focuses on eliminating the stigma and discrimination against people living with the virus. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is encouraging people to speak out against the barriers to prevention and care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

"Only when we make the virus our common enemy, not those affected by it, will we succeed in this global fight," said Dr Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director.

In accordance with UNAIDS' call to action, Ipas's report Reproductive Choice and Women Living with HIV/AIDS summarizes available information concerning the discrimination women face in exercising their sexual and reproductive rights related to pregnancy. The report is based on an extensive literature review and interviews with key informants in Australia, India, Kenya, South Africa and Thailand. Its key findings include the following:

• Women living with HIV/AIDS often encounter numerous obstacles in preventing unwanted pregnancies, including lack of access to information concerning the most appropriate contraceptive methods and barriers to consistent contraceptive use.
• Stigmatization of women living with HIV/AIDS, including the belief that they should not have children, also poses significant obstacles; for example, they may also encounter discrimination when seeking pregnancy and abortion-related care in the health services of many countries.
• While voluntary HIV counseling and testing is promoted widely for women seeking prenatal care, it is often not promoted for women seeking abortion-related care. Such policies and practices suggest that the primary purpose of offering HIV counseling and testing to women is preventing perinatal HIV transmission, rather than enhancing women's health or prolonging their lives.
• Very little research has been done concerning the impact of unsafe abortion on women living with HIV/AIDS in comparison to HIV-negative women, although adverse health outcomes may be worse for them.

The majority of key informants in the interview study said that more needs to be done to advocate for the reproductive rights of women living with HIV/AIDS. Their recommendations include: increasing policy and advocacy related to HIV/AIDS and women's reproductive rights; increasing information and access to health services; and conducting further research on the impacts of HIV/AIDS on women's reproductive health.

Ipas is an international nongovernmental organization that has worked for three decades to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries and to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. Ipas's global and country programs include training, research, advocacy, distribution of reproductive health technologies and information dissemination.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258