Planned Parenthood | Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

 

by Anna
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

If ever there was a crisis that required us to put away our ideological hang-ups and focus on what works, the HIV/AIDS epidemic would definitely be it. That's why it is so upsetting to see Congress questioning AIDS funding amendments that could amount to a major step forward in addressing the global crisis.

On February 7, a group of legislators held a press conference on Capitol Hill explaining why they could not support amendments that Democrats proposed for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Their reasoning seems to have been based more on an insistence to maintain paradigms than a willingness to critically examine AIDS policies for effectiveness.

The bill so heavily opposed by these lawmakers is a reauthorization draft by Democrats in Congress. The legislation seeks to update PEPFAR to lend it renewed force in the fight against AIDS. The bill's most important provision is to remove the current PEPFAR requirement that 33 percent of HIV funding be used to promote abstinence-only prevention education. The bill's creators believe that rebuking this obligation will save more lives because people all over the world do have sex outside of marriage and they need to know how to protect themselves. Many Conservatives are denying the importance of this message by stating that delaying sexual debut is the best way to prevent infection.

Other changes in the reauthorization bill include eliminating the prerequisite that PEPFAR funding recipients pledge to fight against commercial sex work and expanding the availability of money to family planning groups. The logic behind these changes is simple. Battling sex work should not be part of PEPFAR because sex workers should be included in prevention and treatment goals rather than driven underground where they will most likely never be tested or treated for fear of criminal punishment. And family planning groups are some of the best resources for prevention because of their commitment to providing contraceptives. Again, these amendments do not resonate well with many conservatives because sex work and family planning organizations are not part of their agenda.

The fact is, pursuing a "moral" plan in the midst of what should be a global effort is ineffective because not every country or group of people finds the same methods effective in fighting disease and not every society shares the ideology of United States Congressional conservatives. Of course, they don't necessarily share the liberal ideology either; the aim of the reauthorization bill is to open up funding possibilities and reduce prerequisites so that local governments can decide on a case-to-case basis how best to use the money. We simply don't know best for everyone, and the most plausible way to help is to let local people and organizations decide on specific actions.

As Ugandan AIDS activist Beatrice Were proclaimed in Nairobi, Kenya at a rally last year denouncing Bush's AIDS policy, "We are expected to abstain when we are young girls and to be faithful when we are married to men who rape us...I want to be very clear. The abstinence-only business, women must say no." Were's point is well taken; an AIDS program that claims to be humanitarian cannot ignore reality, and in many cases premarital sex, commercial sex work, and the need for family planning are realities.

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