Hope for the Living Dead

Every year in South Africa some 80,000 babies are born to die. They contract HIV from infected mothers, and without preventive treatment, they are doomed to a sickly descent into death. Half will die within a year of birth; most of the others will perish before they are five years old.

This death sentence on the unborn has provoked a new activism in the war on AIDS. South Africans are mobilizing against a government they say is not doing enough to fight the pandemic. At issue is the supply of antiretroviral drugs that can reduce the chances of...