Should rapid HIV testing be available over the counter?(Pro & Con)

YES

If the goal of medicine is patient empowerment, why not allow patients to go to a pharmacy, buy a rapid HIV test, and test themselves in the privacy of their own homes?

The link to medical care in our current system of HIV counseling and testing is tenuous at best. As it is now, only 35% of people get counseling with their HIV testing, so to say that we need counseling with HIV testing and therefore people need to go to a Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) approved lab is spurious, because most people do not get counseling with their testing.

I acknowledge that the potential for abuse exists with an over-the-counter rapid HIV test. For example, would people go home and coerce a child or an adolescent to get tested? Would they go home and coerce a spouse to get tested?

On the other hand, one could also envision a scenario where someone might want to test a prospective partner prior to having sex with that person. There's a danger there, because it takes 3-6 months to develop HIV antibodies. The person could wind up antibody negative, but nonetheless it might be a way for some people to protect themselves against infection if they want to engage in unprotected sex.

The real issue is the balance between paternalism/protection and patient empowerment in medicine.

We give patients other self-diagnostic tools. We teach patients how to take their own blood pressure. We teach patients how to read their blood sugars for diabetes control. Those diagnostic tools have been licensed and people have been encouraged to take care of themselves. Why not do the same for HIV antibody testing?