Women, AIDS, and Family Benefits

This case comment discusses an appeal to the Social Assistance Review Board of a lower directors decision to refuse to grant benefits under the Family Benefits Act (1990) to a woman with HIV. The author discusses how the categories of permanently unemployable person or disabled person as defined within the Act discriminate against women. She also discusses how prejudices amongst health professionals toward HIV infected women work against these women in legal proceedings of this kind. The author further discusses how the governmental definition of AIDS discriminates against women. [Descriptors: Reproductive Rights - HIV/AIDS, Canada]