U.S. HOUSE APPROVED $15 BILLION AIDS PACKAGE INCLUDE ONE THIRD FOR ABSTINENCE

WASHINGTON, May 5, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last week, the U.S. House approved an amendment to a $15 billion AIDS package that fulfills the President’s requests that U.S. funding promote the Ugandan model for AIDS prevention.  The Pitts/Hyde Abstinence Amendment provides 33 percent of the funds set aside for HIV/AIDS prevention to go to abstinence-until-marriage programs.  Michael Schwartz, vice president for government relations at Concerned Women for America told LifeSite that the critical issue is the Ugandan model where abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage are the primary lines of defense against the deadly virus with condoms only as a backup – for example for prostitutes.  Schwartz described the choice legislators had as between the Uganda model and the San Francisco model.  With the San Francisco model, said Schwartz, “$3-4 billion would be used to encase the continent in rubber.”  However legislators voted to allot one third of the monies for abstinence programs with treatment and palliative care to be carved out of the remaining two thirds of the funds.  With the amendment, said Schwarz, the U.S. is promoting “prevention activities that save lives instead of killing more people.”  See previous LifeSite reports:  POPULATION CONTROL EMPHASIS, FAILED AIDS PROGRAMS HAVE “COST MILLIONS” OF AFRICAN LIVES https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03042401.html   PRI SAYS MORE WOMEN AIDS VICTIMS IN AFRICA BECAUSE OF INVASIVE SEXUAL HEALTH PROGRAMS https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03042902.html NATIONAL POST COLUMNIST RIPS IDEOLOGICAL, ANTI-RELIGIOUS UNAIDS PROGRAMS https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03041108.html   AFRICAN CHURCHES REJECT CONDOM USE AND CONDEMN CONDOM-FORCING AID https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/apr/03041403.html