Changing Positions and Entrenched Polemics: A Brief History of the Association to Benefit Children’s View on Pediatric HIV Testing, Counseling, and Care

In this Article, the author documents the trajectory of the Association to Benefit Children’s approach to pediatric HIV testing. Part I focuses on ABC’s lawsuit on behalf of children with HIV in New York and documents the settlement process, which resulted in allowing mothers to know the results of the HIV test results. Next, the author reflects on why the debate became as acrimonious as it did, and how that impeded the resolution of a satisfactory result for the widest number of people. Lastly, the author offers several lessons learned from the controversy surrounding the debate.

Specifically, the debate over infant HIV testing suggests that advocacy organizations need to seek common ground. While providing valuable services, HIV/AIDS advocates continue to live in fear and suspicion which can indirectly help keep public discussion and the realities of the disease underground.