Just recently, on the occasion of World AIDS Day, a solid majority in the European Parliament voted on a resolution declaring that official EU policy for HIV/AIDS prevention should be closely linked to “sexual and reproductive rights” — including safe and legal abortion.
Although a resolution to combat HIV/AIDS is indisputably worthy of parliamentary support, the amalgamation of HIV with abortion suggests an alarming underlying eugenic logic that seems to say: Possible carriers of the HIV virus should be preventively aborted in order to prevent further spreading of the disease.
Prior to the vote by the European Parliament, no discussion at all was held on the real risk of HIV infection or even on the medical possibilities that exist to reduce its transmission. This is why we think it is important to give a few key facts about the medical reality of HIV in both developed and developing countries.
FACT:
HIV-infected mothers can transmit the virus to their unborn or newborn child (so-called “vertical transmission”).
- The mechanisms of transmission are either via the placenta during delivery or through breast-feeding.
- The highest risk of infection exists at the very end of the pregnancy and during delivery.
- Without any therapy, 20-30% of newborn infants are HIV-positive.
FACT:
There are medical approaches and interventions that can be used to reduce the risk of transmission.
- Antiretroviral therapy applied to the mother as of the 30th week of pregnancy (so-called “highly active anti-retroviral therapy” or HAART)
- Delivery through Cesarean before contractions start.
- Antiretroviral medicine for newborn babies for about 4 weeks after birth. (This therapy can be applied up to 28 weeks after birth.)
- No breast-feeding.
FACT:
Some of these measures can be applied in developing countries.
In countries with very poor living conditions, neither Cesarean nor the eschewal of breast-feeding is possible; but there is the possibility of applying antiretroviral therapy to newborn children. This depends on the status of each respective country and funding for such therapy.
Some wealthier countries use more complex and more expensive therapies. In developed countries, the HIV transmission rate amounts to 1-2%. This is the case for most EU countries. In Germany, for example, 300 HIV-positive women are pregnant every year. In 2009, the virus was transmitted in 11 cases; in 2010, in less than 10.
However, studies show that even in less developed and underdeveloped countries, the transmission rate can be significantly reduced. In Botswana for example, transmission could be reduced to 1,1% for 6-month-old babies, despite breast-feeding until the 6th month. In Africa, such therapy costs only several hundred US dollars per child per year.
In Mozambique, for example, one of the poorest countries in Africa with a high AIDS rate, transmission after antiretroviral therapy is currently around 4%, according to the Shapiro study. (See Shapiro, R.L. et al., “Antiretroviral Regimens in Pregnancy and Breast-Feeding in Botswana”, New England Journal of Medicine, 2010; 362: 2282-2294). This could be reduced even more if more money were used for the development of antiretroviral therapy instead of financing abortion.
Conclusion
With good antiretroviral therapy, which is available in both rich and poor countries with tolerable side effects, the risk of vertical HIV-transmission for unborn and newborn infants is only 1-2% on average. It’s difficult to see how a transmission risk of only 1-2% justifies abortion as a preventive measure.
As should be very clear from the figures given above, the resolution voted on by the majority of MEPs is not only politically but also medically wrong.
