AIDS and the future of reproductive freedom

The specter of pediatric AIDS fundamentally challenges elements of the liberal ideological basis of women's reproductive freedom. Many public health officials hold that preventing transmission of HIV from mother to fetus requires efforts to discourage pregnancy by infected women. For over two decades, however, genetic counselors, feminists, and medical ethicists have stressed the importance of nondirective counseling in the context of reproductive choice. The question now confronted by American society is whether it will be possible to frame an ideology of reproductive choice that recognizes the limits of liberal individualism, while preserving the basic features of reproductive freedom.