World AIDS conference debates Bush administration's policies

Articles: World AIDS conference debates Bush administration's policies

Posted by admin on Monday, July 12, 2004 - 06:44 AM

The world's biggest AIDS conference opened in Bangkok today, with bitter allegations about the influence of religious fundamentalism on the Bush administration's disease prevention policies.
To the White House, preventing HIV infection is as simple as ABC - A for Abstinence, B for Being faithful and C for Condoms - with a heavy emphasis on the A. So great is the conservative influence that when Congress approved the President's $20-billion aid program, it attached a number of abstinence-only policy conditions. Pro-condom campaigners and the Bush delegation have been arguing the merits of the policy at the AIDS conference in Bangkok, as South East Asia Correspondent Peter Lloyd reports. (people singing) PETER LLOYD: In the lingua franca of AIDS, religions are known collectively as faith-based organisations. In Bangkok, more than 100 groups have assembled to praise the Lord and pass out the press release preaching abstinence. Father Robert Vitillo is from the Catholic Church. ROBERT VITILLO: Well, the teaching of the Catholic Church is very, very clear. Sexual activity should be limited within marriage, and within faithful marriages, and so any kind of activity outside of marriage is not seen as something that is right to do. PETER LLOYD: Father Vitillo is one of George W. Bush's fellow travellers – a Christian right believer who advocates a highly contentious view that the greatest method of HIV prevention lies in self discipline. ROBERT VITILLO: When people are abstinent outside of marriage, and when you have two uninfected spouses within marriage engaging in sexual activity, you don't have a problem around HIV prevention. PETER LLOYD: Abstaining from sex is the cornerstone of domestic US Government AIDS policy, and it's now being exported to the world under President Bush's much hailed commitment to spend $20-billion over the next five years fighting AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. Conservative lawmakers in Congress threatened to block the fund if it didn't emphasis their worldview about abstinence. Democrat Barbara Lee sat on the drafting committee. BARBARA LEE: Unfortunately, when we worked on the legislation, there was a 33 per cent requirement for abstinence only, and for that, I fought against it. Many of us fought against it. We didn't believe that was right. PETER LLOYD: What was the debate like when this issue was being hammered out? BARBARA LEE: Well you know we have many in our House who are very fundamentalist in terms of very right wing religious values, and unfortunately they see something about this ABC abstinence provision of the ABC initiative that makes more sense to them than the B and C components. PETER LLOYD: Grass roots family planning organizations that work in the developing world don't completely repudiate abstinence, just so long as there is equal access to condoms and abortions when required. The problem is George W. Bush has imposed what activists call the "global gag" rule that specifically denies US funds to anyone who encourages abortions and condoms. Amy Coen is the President of Population Action International. AMY COEN: There is no science behind this. There is no program person behind this. We all know it doesn't work and, in much of the world, abstinence isn't… it isn't unmarried teenagers who are getting infected, it's married women who are getting infected from their husbands. So how is abstinence supposed to help them? It's just a religious, an American-centric religious point of view that this President cares much more about than he does about saving the lives of the most vulnerable people and young women in the world. PETER LLOYD: There aren't very many Bush administration people at the AIDS conference to hear such messages. The official delegation is a quarter of the one that attended the last AIDS conference in Spain. US AIDS Ambassador, Randall Tobias, attributes the cutback to monetary reasons. (to Randall Tobias) What do you say to those many critics who are here in Bangkok who are saying that the US Government is now hostage to a religious conservative minority that's pushing the abstinence-only agenda? RANDALL TOBIAS: Well I say they're wrong. And I say they're very much misconstruing what we're doing and how we're doing it. They're mis-characterising what our strategy is. PETER LLOYD: How many times have you had the chance to talk this year with President Bush about AIDS policy? RANDALL TOBIAS: Oh gee, I don't know that I could count the times but about two or three weeks ago I flew with him on Air Force One to a speech that he was making and then rode with him in his car and we talked about it a lot. PETER LLOYD: Activists believe the true reason for the scaling back of the US delegation is a payback for the conference giving so much oxygen to the pro-condom lobby. Either way, the decision hasn't dulled the voice of the religious right.

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