We learned in January that the [tag]Bush[/tag] administration and congressional Republicans are directing a large percentage of federal grants to combat [tag]AIDS[/tag] directly to religious groups, which, of course, emphasize disease prevention through [tag]abstinence[/tag]. [tag]Contraception[/tag] is downplayed in these publicly-funded programs, if it’s mentioned at all.
So, how’s that working out? Surprise, surprise, not terribly well.
Insistence by [tag]Republican[/tag] Congressional leaders that American money to fight the spread of AIDS globally be used to emphasize abstinence and fidelity is undercutting comprehensive and widely accepted aid models, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Tuesday.
The report by the G.A.O., an investigative arm of [tag]Congress[/tag], examines the effect of a mandate from Congress that at least a third of United States money to prevent the spread of AIDS worldwide be devoted to sexual abstinence and fidelity programs.
It found that the provision had limited the reach of broader strategies to fight AIDS that include the use of condoms — a conclusion strongly contested by a senior Bush administration official.
The report also said the requirement had meant that officials in some countries have had to reduce spending on programs to prevent the transmission of H.I.V. from women to their newborn babies, as well as other prevention strategies.
“It is hampering their ability to implement key elements of the widely accepted model of H.I.V./AIDS prevention — the ABC approach,” said David Gootnick, the main author of the report. ABC stands for [tag]abstain[/tag], be faithful or use [tag]condoms[/tag].
Government researchers concluded that in nearly all of the countries that are receiving U.S. funds to combat AIDS, abstinence requirements undercut the “ability to develop interventions that are responsive to local epidemiology and social norms.”
In the United States, the Republican plan to use abstinence for social engineering is bad enough — federal abstinence-only guidelines and curricula don’t work, are usually littered with factual errors, and tie the hands of good teachers who want to educate students with reliable, accurate information.
But to see this approach extended to combating AIDS around the globe is simply tragic.