those who have in any way been touched by AIDS.  Today is World Aids Day, and I write in honor of the mothers around the world who see their only choice to give up their children while knowing they themselves are going to die.  In the US, HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence.  In the developing world, AIDS is just that–a death sentence.

There are children whose life’s are changed each day by AIDS–they watch their parents and loved ones die.  They themselves get sick and perish.  It is a travesty that this disease that can be managed is allowed to ravage those who we don’t see as fit to be saved.  These could have been my children.   By 2010, there will be 20 million AIDS orphans around the world.

I can only imagine the fear that HIV+/Living with AIDS birth mothers live with on a daily basis–worried about passing the disease onto their children/babies.  Having to give them up/abandon them because they cannot breastfeed because of the disease and knowing that their babies will die if they don’t give them up–from lack of food.  This breaks my heart.  While I have a family built through adoption, I wish that no woman/family have to give up their children because they can’t get medical care or have access to other ways to nourish their children.

What can you do?  What will you do?