KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY:

JUST SAY "NOT UNTIL WE'RE MARRIED": Legislating Morality And Undermining HIV/AIDS Prevention (JOANNE MARINER, Oct. 14, 2002, Find Law)

As it previously did with the abortion gag rule, the Bush Administration has taken recent steps toward imposing its restrictive abstinence-only views on a global audience. (In January 2001, during his very first week in office, President Bush issued an executive order barring U.S. financial assistance to international nongovernmental organizations that, using separate funds, engage in such activities as talking with clients about abortion, disseminating information about abortion, or advocating for the repeal of laws that restrict abortion.)

Last May, at the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Children, the U.S. delegation joined with Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan and the Holy See (the axis of fundamentalism?) to press summit participants to endorse sexual abstinence "both before and during marriage" as the only way to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission.

The Child Rights Caucus, a coalition of hundreds of nongovernmental organizations from around the world, condemned the U.S. emphasis on abstinence as "both naive and inappropriate." As the caucus pointed out, "for the millions of girls who marry before age 18 or who are forced into sexual relationships, abstinence is not an option, and lack of access to appropriate education and services can be life-threatening."

The problem with Ms Mariner's objection is that abstinence obviously is the only way to prevent transmission and that the idea that these girls who are being forced into sex will be able to prevail upon their assailants to wear a condom is nearly deranged. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 16, 2002 6:20 PM