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FAX: SACRAMENTO NEWS SACRAMENTO CA 19167371437 MELINDA WELSH;

It was the most wrenching decision of Pam Goodlet's young
life.

She was 22 years old, single, pregnant and infected with
HIV.

"Should I have this child?" she asked herself. She
desperately wanted a family. "But what if I give my child a
fatal disease? What if I get sick and my child has no
memory of me when I was well? What if I die? I don't want
to bring a child into this world and not be there for her."

That was three years ago. Now Goodlet, of Brooklyn,
N.Y., has two healthy children, and she is free of AIDS
symptoms.

More women like Goodlet, who in the past might never
have become pregnant or undergone abortions, are deciding
to have babies despite their HIV infection, speakers said
at a national meeting here Thursday. New drug therapies
have given them hope of living long enough to raise their
children, while the risk of transmitting the virus from
mother to newborn is dropping.

But the issue of HIV and pregnancy remains highly
controversial. Goodlet and others said they were subjected
to moral judgments from people, including medical
providers, who labeled them as selfish and ignorant.

"There is no right or wrong decision," said Erica
Montaserio Bisguyer, a San Francisco family health
practitioner who works with pregnant women who are infected
with HIV. "These women have the same right to make choices
as anyone else." The choices have become more complicated
with the emergence of drugs that are extending the lives of
patients and eliminating symptoms. In 1989, half of all
newborns exposed to the AIDS virus in the uterus became
infected. Today, that risk has dropped to as low as 8
percent for women who take the drug AZT during their
pregnancy, one study has shown.

Meanwhile, new drug combinations are allowing people to
live longer, healthier lives.

"It's a very exciting choice for me, but also a very
scary one," said Lisa O'Connor, who is HIV positive and
seven months' pregnant.

"There is such a feeling of shame and guilt and judgment
for having a positive baby," said O'Connor, who works as a
counselor in a residential drug treatment facility in San
Francisco.

But after falling in love and getting married, O'Connor
said, she decided to try to get pregnant.

O'Connor, who is taking AZT, looks and feels healthy and
is optimistic that her baby will be free of the virus. But
if the child is not, she said, she will accept it. "And if
I die," she added, "I want to leave something behind." Her
husband and family are supportive and would care for the
child, she said.

Another speaker, Joanna Omi of the New York City Health
& Hospitals System, talked about New York state's new
mandatory AIDS testing program for newborns. The program,
which is the first in the country, has sparked intense
debate in part because the tests are no longer conducted
anonymously, she said.

"This is in essence mandatory testing of moms," because
if the baby's blood is infected so is the mother's, she
said.

Activists are concerned that the names of those who test
positive could leak out, with consequences to both mother
and baby, she said.

Omi predicted that New York's program will spark similar
efforts in other states.

The national conference, which has drawn some 2,000
caregivers, researchers and patients who have been affected
by AIDS, featured another controversial topic Thursday.
Dennis Peron, a longtime activist for the legalization of
marijuana, touted the drug as an effective treatment for
symptoms of AIDS and other ailments. "If this drug had any
other name it would be legal," declared Peron, a leader in
the effort to pass Proposition 215, which allows the
cultivation and possession of marijuana for medical use
if recommended by a doctor.

But the Clinton administration has threatened to help
prosecute doctors who make such recommendations.

"Now the war on drugs is a war on doctors," Peron
said.

"I'd like to think Proposition 215 has given people
hope," he said. "With this measure, we have taken the
first step toward a more compassionate society."