Bush Administration’s AIDS Prevention, Sex Education Policies ‘Cater to Ultra-Conservative Constituency,’ Editorial Says
The Bush administration is "cater[ing] to an ultra-conservative constituency that is in denial about the realities of sex" in its insistence that abstinence education not include "any instruction on safe sex or contraception," an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial says. President Bush's promise to have Congress explore putting warning labels on condoms, his resistance to funding international family planning programs and his refusal to fund the United Nations Population Fund is a "dangerous approach to AIDS and pregnancy prevention [that] is not only putting lives at risk ... but ... also is isolating the United States from a world community eager to use all the tools available to stop the spread of disease and slow down population growth," the editorial says. In India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding "innovative" HIV/AIDS prevention programs based on research about "how the disease moves from place to place and the cultural and commercial pressures behind that movement," the editorial says, concluding, "If Bush really wanted to curb the AIDS epidemic and assist poor families, he ... would focus on practical solutions" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/5).
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