Absence of balance: Sweeping refusal policies in PEPFAR and the proposed Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act.

Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) organizations receiving U.S. government funds for the prevention of the sexual transmission of HIV may not only refuse on religious or moral grounds to directly provide condoms (or any other service to which they object) but they may also withhold information about condoms and refuse to refer clients to other programs through which condoms may be obtained. Moreover they are now seeking to extend this wholly unbalanced approach to another program affecting an equally vulnerable group of people: women who have been victims of sex trafficking. Codes of ethics exist to remind us all that conscience is a two-way street. When religious or moral objections are accommodated it is equally important that individuals’ access to care not be impeded. One-sided refusal polices fail the ethical test precisely because they are one-sided because they are lacking in any semblance of balance (Excerpts)