American Civil Liberties Union

Yesterday, organizations combating HIV/AIDS received support to continue and strengthen their work with one of the populations most vulnerable to infection. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the "anti-prostitution pledge," a part of the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act. The law required nongovernmental organizations receiving U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS work to declare — or pledge — that they opposed prostitution. Most alarmingly, the pledge extended to all parts of an organization's work, even parts that didn't use U.S. money.

Today, a federal appeals court in Manhattan heard oral argument in a case challenging the so-called "anti-prostitution pledge," which is part of a law called the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act. On one side, the government argued that it can require nonprofit groups who accept any government funding for anti-AIDS work to declare that they oppose prostitution — that is, take the pledge — and that it can bar them from saying or doing anything that could promote prostitution. On the other side was a group of nongovernmental humanitarian organizations that are dedicated to fighting AIDS in the parts of the world most hard-hit by the pandemic. They argued that the pledge requirement violates their First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The National LGBT Bar Association recently announced the recipients of its inaugural Best LGBT Lawyers under 40 Award, and we're happy to note that two ACLU attorneys are among that select group. Christine Sun, senior counsel for the ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project since 2005, has many gay rights accomplishments under her belt in her short career. She was lead attorney in Nguon v. Wolf, the Southern California case that led to the federal court ruling that a high school student cannot be "outed" to her parents without her consent. Christine was also counsel on Chandler v. Barker which recently struck down a Tennessee family court practice in divorce cases of prohibiting the same-sex partner of a parent from staying the night when the children are present in their home. Most recently, Christine represented Constance McMillen in her successful litigation against the rural Mississippi school district that refused to let her bring her girlfriend to the prom and then cancelled the prom when told they had to.

Yesterday, Change.org's Amanda Koer published an interview with the ACLU's Brigitte Amiri about our lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

A: Why do you think it is important for human trafficking victims to have access to reproductive healthcare?

B: Most women who have been trafficked have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their traffickers. As the government itself has recognized, denying reproductive health care services to women who have been trafficked further victimizes these women. For example, some traffickers prohibit women from accessing contraception, including condoms, and force trafficked women to carry a pregnancy to term or to have an abortion. Allowing these women to make their own decisions about reproductive health care is important so that they can become self sufficient. Also, people who are trafficked and forced to work in the sex trade have higher incidence of HIV. It is therefore crucial that they are provided information about, and have access to, condoms.

Read the full interview here, and you can learn more about the lawsuit, ACLU of Massachusetts v. Sebelius, here.