Condoms Divide Effort To Fight HIV/AIDS, Columnist Says
More people are contracting HIV in part because "[n]ot everyone agrees as to the best way to fight" the disease, with a "tiny bit of latex divid[ing]" both sides of the debate, columnist Art Buchwald writes in a Washington Post opinion piece. According to Buchwald, the law (HR 1298) authorizing the five-year, $15 billion global AIDS initiative allows the United States to "give out condoms only as a last resort" because President Bush "believes that if the people of the world find out condoms are free, they will be encouraged to engage in unwanted sexual behavior instead of just saying no." In addition, distributing condoms "at cost ... could be wasting the taxpayers' money," Buchwald says. He concludes, "In a perfect world, you would not need contraceptives, but also in a perfect world there would be no AIDS" (Buchwald, Washington Post, 12/11).
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