I want to talk about a terrible Supreme Court decision that was handed down right before us winning abortion access and very few are discussing it.

In USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of law requiring foreign orgs. receiving funds to fight HIV/AIDS to have policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking does not violate the First Amendment.

This is wrong.

This means the the Court upheld the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), a 2003 policy that conflate sex work with human trafficking and refuses funds to organizations that do not have a policy explicitly opposing *sex work* or sex trafficking.

This Court ruled in 2003 that the APLO improperly restricted U.S. groups’ constitutional rights.

To be sure, the APLO absolutely violates the First Amendment and treats even some American organizations (if based in another country) as “foreign” affiliates.

It is based on a hatred of people living with HIV and sex workers and will bring horrible health implications. We need to decriminalize sex work and advance the rights of sex workers and public health outcomes. #DecrimNow

A recent Lancet study show that we could avert HIV acquisition by up to 47% if we decriminalized sex work but obviously the majority of justices didn’t care.

It also isn’t lost on me that Justice Kavanaugh issued the majority opinion as he applied a similar, albeit wrong, decision before.

We need to talk about this more especially being made right before a BIG WIN for abortion access.