New Jersey would become the first state in the United States to require both pregnant women and newborns to be tested for HIV, under a proposal unveiled Thursday by an influential lawmaker.
Senate President Richard J. Codey said he will introduce legislation to require the testing unless the mother specifically chooses in writing to reject the test.
According to the Kaiser Foundation, a nonprofit research organization focusing on U.S. health care issues, four states — Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas — require health care providers to test a mother for HIV, unless the mother specifically asks not to be tested.
Connecticut and New York are the only states that test all newborns, according to the foundation.
"The key in the fight against HIV and AIDS is early detection and treatment," said Codey, D-Essex. "For newborns this can be a lifesaving measure."
"If early detection can help reduce newborn infections and improve the quality of life for newborns and women that are infected, then by all means, we should be doing it," Codey added.
The bill would require that pregnant women be tested for HIV as early as possible in their pregnancy and again during their third trimester. Each birthing facility in the state would be required to test newborns in its care.
Current New Jersey law requires providers only to offer HIV testing to pregnant women.
The Center for Women Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based feminist advocacy organization, opposes mandatory HIV testing, arguing it violates a woman's right to make childbearing and medical treatment decisions.
"There's an important issue about privacy and the right to make certain decisions about one's self," said Leslie Wolfe, the center's president. "What's really needed is good counseling, preventative education and conversations with respectful medical personnel and counselors about HIV."
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended all pregnant women be tested for HIV, though it has said testing "should be voluntary and free of coercion."
The CDC found intervention can prevent many HIV-infected women from transmitting the virus to the infant.
Drugs during pregnancy, it found, can cut mother-to-child HIV transmission to 2 percent, compared to 13 percent if drugs aren't given to the baby until labor and delivery and 25 percent if no drugs are ever used.
Codey's bill would require doctors and health care providers give women information about HIV and AIDS, the benefits of being tested, medical treatment available to treat HIV infection and the reduced risk to a fetus if an HIV-infected pregnant woman receives treatment.
New Jersey has about 17,700 AIDS cases, according to the Kaiser Foundation, including about 5,800 women, the fifth-highest total for women in the United States.
Women represent 32.5 percent of all AIDS cases in the state, compared to a national average of 23.4 percent.
The Garden State has 772 pediatric AIDS cases, the third highest in the nation behind New York and Florida, and 409 pediatric HIV cases, the second highest in the nation behind New York, through 2005, according to the foundation.
"In a state with some of the highest HIV rates among women, this move should be a no-brainer," Codey said. "The additional benefit of testing every woman is that it reduces the stigma associated with testing only those based on their risk behaviors and should, as statistics show, make women less inclined to refuse the test."
