Comprehensive sex-ed policy vital
By, Nickie, member of the International Youth Leadership Council
The Diamondback (Georgetown University Newspaper), December 1, 2006
Letter to the Editor
With yet another year gone, I cannot help but wonder what progress has been made in something as basic as sexual education. A good comprehensive sex education policy is vital if we are to achieve any progress in HIV/AIDS prevention both in the U.S. and worldwide.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush called for a $15 billion initiative to fight HIV/AIDS internationally. When Congress enacted legislation to address the initiative, it mandated that at least one-third of prevention dollars go to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, neglecting science-based prevention strategies that included condom use. Access to condoms is vital in countries where poverty, economic dependency and social factors – ranging from child marriage to trafficking and trading sex to meet basic needs - give women and girls very little control over whether, when and with whom to have sex. We can not deprive people from information as basic as the role and importance of condom use in HIV/AIDS prevention and expect to make progress in preventing this pandemic.
The Bush administration recognizes the moral imperative of the world’s wealthiest country to take significant action against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Unfortunately the U.S. is using its funds to promote a religious agenda that ignores science, promotes abstinence-only instead of comprehensive sex education and denigrates condoms. If the U.S. is truly serious about using all the resources at our disposal to fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, then all U.S.-funded efforts must be based in sound, proven strategies free of political and ideological motivations.
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