Is there a chartiy that provides sterilization for women with HIV/AIDS?

Question

I see all those commercials asking us to give and help children with AIDS. It's heartbreaking, but to be honest, it's hard to see the point. I doubt these women want to have babies that suffer. Wouldn't our money be better spent offering these women permanent birth control?

Answer 1

I really don't think this would be the best way to deal with the AIDS crisis. The most that could be done here is to give women - and men - the option of sterilisation, but you can't forcibly do it. You can't make someone do anything with their body that they don't want to do.

Also, many women who discover they have HIV do so at the same time they find out they're pregnant, so it would be too late.

I think charities should focus on educating people about how to stop the spread of AIDS, and on medication to help the people who already have HIV. Babies born to HIV-positive parents won't necessarily have the disease themselves - it's usually passed on during birth, not during the pregnancy, and so in Western countries especially the baby is often born HIV-negative. HIV-positive children usually result from the myth that raping a virgin can cure AIDS, which better education would prevent.

"At least 75% of babies born to HIV positive mothers will test HIV negative without medical intervention. Studies have shown that for properly nourished HIV positive expectant mothers receiving regular prenatal care, over 90% of their children test negative with no drug therapy."

http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/mothers...

Answer 2

and what about the men who impregnated them with both a fetus AND the disease?  What do we give them to help stop spreading the disease in the first place?

Answer 3

So you are pro-sterilization of low income women who suffer from AIDS?  We of course would have to continue helping the children that have already been born with AIDS. I have attached an article that discuses PACTG 076 which allows women to have babies while they have AIDS.  Many of the women have opted to not be sterilized after it came out.  However it is to costly to implement in third world countries. UNFPA says that "Protecting the reproductive rights of HIV-positive women, including preventing coerced abortions or sterilization, is a critical human rights issue." So I guess the battle would be against human rights activist who are probably against abortion and sterilization.  I did find an article were in the 1970's whites attempted to sterilize Latinos and Puerto Ricans because they saw them as unfit mothers.  This was not a good thing so forced sterilization is probably not a good idea.  However; Planned Parenthood assist women with no condition or with AIDS and various other conditions receive sterilization.

Answer 4

Why is it that only women have to be sterilised for?

Better education in third world countries(dispell the myth that men having s*x with a baby will cure Aids) and condoms being more widely available will help.

Answer 5

First of all, sterilization is not helpful to people living with AIDS.

Secondly, it goes against the basic tenet of human rights that you cannot force someone to undergo medical intervention against their will.

Thirdly, here you are holding women responsible for something that is an epidemic. It takes two people to transmit a disease. You could just as easily advocate forced male sterilization, forced abortions or forced incarceration and all would be equally unacceptable solutions.

Fourthly, forced sterilization has often been associated with genocide and war. In thi case, given the overwhelming predominance of coloured people concerned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the "developing world" this would almost certainly be considered genocide.

Fifthly, not all pregnant women transmit the virus to their foetus. It is a risk and a possibility, but not a given.

Lastly, the AIDS epidemic is also perpetuated by poverty, lack of education and accessibility to birth control, and treatment not simply by women having babies. Forced sterilization would still not prevent men from transmitting it to women or vice versa, it would only address on aspect of this crisis, which is women carrying a feotus that is affected.

In conclusion, this seems like a well intentioned but blind-sided solution that ignores most of the pressing issues behind this crisis, with complete disregard for the socio-cultural, political and economic as well as medical context within which it exists.

Answer 6

I hate the concept of sterilization - it sounds like a manual implementation of Darwins theory of survival of the fittest. I know that the intention to offer sterilization to women with HIV/AIDS are good, nevertheless where will we ever draw the line? Who else will we begin to offer sterilization to in order to better "their" life?

I read a theory once which proposed to isolate all sufferers of HIV/AIDS for the next 50 or 60 years in order to free the world of the virus once they had all died. It was inhumane. These people need to be educated on birth control and safe s*x, they should not be exposed to an operation which ultimately tells them that they are not wanted and neither are their off spring.

Overall, sterilization will NOT improve stats anyway - approximately 22 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2007 in Sub-Saharan Africa. They weren't all born with the virus.

Answer 7

It logical and probably humane but it isn't PC so you will be getting flamed for even asking. Personally I think all Felons should be made sterile as well as any man or woman who thinks abortions should be used as a form of birth control.

Answer 8

Seems like a pretty controversial thing to found a charity on.  For some reason sterilization on a mass scale has not been suggested as a way to deal with the AIDS crisis.  I assume you're referring to third world countries -

If a dictator enforced sterilization on his people, or a portion of his people, even if they were all affected with a disease, that would probably be seen by others as a horrible thing.  You're talking about eugenics, where one person decides that certain people are worthy of reproduction and others aren't, based on an arbitrary set of rules.

Even if this were well-intentioned, as a way to control the spread of the disease, it still could be perceived as a little too close to the acts of an evil dictator such as Hitler or Idi Amin.

Look at the reactions to enforced female circumcision and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Selective breeding is basically what you're proposing, which has become associated with n**i abuses and the extermination of undesired population groups.  

Developments in genetic and reproductive technology have made huge advancements, but even if what you're proposing would lessen human suffering, it would be very controversial and a tough sell.

A charity would probably get more support if it focused on education about birth control and protection from STDs in these third world countries.

Answer 9

I do understand what you are getting at, and in a world where common sense rules, it would probably be the way things are done. However we live in a world were everyone is worried about being P.C. and hurting other people feelings completely forgetting that there are solutions to certain problems if we would just get over our hang ups. That being said, you are merely suggesting OFFERING this to them and everyone is jumping down your throat. I am sure alot of women with HIV/AIDS would jump at the chance to have that done. I am sure they would never want to bring a baby into this world who would possibly suffer as much as they do. But there are always those people who will protest and say "HIV/AIDS carrying people have a right to reproduce too!" Because we live in a world of self centeredness. So your idea would never get off the ground because the protesters would make such a huge stink about it that it would get shut down before it ever started up. So even if something makes 100% sense, but may offend 1 person you can be 99% sure it will never happen.

Answer 10

When your immune system is compromised by something like HIV/AIDS, elective surgery like that is dangerous.