> Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Yeah, but if the Church encourages the use of > condoms > > to check the spread of AIDS, it would also be > > encouraging the practice of pre- or extra-marital > > sex as well, which from a Catholic standpoint is > bad... > That might be a minor result; and I agree that is > bad. But, the fact is > that a very high percentage of the men have > extra-marital sex, and then > infect their wives. If the use of condoms is > socially sectioned, then these > wives have a much better chance to save their own > lives. > > AIDs, in Africa, is horrid beyond belief. IIRC, the > mean life expectancy > in Zambia is now down to about 32 years, as a result > of the AIDS epidemic. Horribly correct. Not only in Zambia, but in 6 other African countries, life expectancy has been reduced to under 40 years. http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040714/449_25824.asp "The AIDS pandemic has reduced life expectancy in some African countries to below 35 years, undermining development gains made in the last decade, the United Nations said today at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. Thirteen sub-Saharan African nations have recorded "dramatic reversals" in human development since 1990, largely due to the disease, the U.N. Development Program said in a statement. Seven of those countries now have life expectancies under 40 years, worst among them Zambia, where a child born today can expect to live just 32.7 years � down from 47.4 in 1990. The country's HIV-infection rate among adults is 16.5 percent. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe, where 25 percent of people have the disease, has dropped from 56.6 years in 1990 to 33.9 years in 2002, and in Swaziland, which has an HIV-infection rate of 38.8 percent, from 55.3 to 35.7 years. The Central African Republic, Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi were also among the countries with life expectancies below 40..." As for the argument that 'a girl should just say no,' not only do most wives have little-to-no control over their own bodies, but as Dan has pointed out, it is culturally accepted in many parts of Africa that a man use prostitutes if he is away from his wife for an extended time (not sure if that's a week or a month or what). Worse, there is a myth that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS, and some men don't ask consent: "...Veronica, like many other girls, was infected by a man convinced that having sex with a virgin would cure him. This cruel myth is being perpetuated across Africa. In a bid either to avoid or to cure their HIV infection, men are targeting younger and younger girls as sexual partners, willing or not..." http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/aids/stories/women.children/ (A variant on a very old and tired myth...the Greeks believed that gonorrhea could be cured by sex with a virgin. I'm sure that some idiots in the post-1492 world thought syphilis could be cured the same way.) The orphan crisis: "...More than 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa - equivalent to the UK's entire child population - have been orphaned by Aids, the report says. By 2010, this number will have risen to 43 million... "...Youngsters are often orphaned two or three times as their parents die to be replaced by aunts, uncles and other relatives who also fall victim to the disease. Many are forced on to the streets and are growing up in "an emotional and spiritual vacuum", Christian Aid said. The report states: "Villages are becoming ghost towns, local economies are crumbling. "The orphaned children, as adults, will not be equipped to drive the economic engine of Africa. This will make the struggle for development and growth on the continent even tougher..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1328886.stm WRT abstinence-only: "...Uganda, touted as a model of HIV/AIDS intervention, saw the infection rate among sexually active adults drop from 30 percent to 5 percent. The key, according to Uganda's Institute of Public Health Director, David Serwadda, was a multi-approach prevention campaign in which condoms played a substantial role. "We must not forget that abstinence is not always possible for people at risk, especially (African) women," Serwadda said. "Many women simply do not have the option to delay initiation of sex or limit their number of sexual partners." The $15 billion, five-year U.S. campaign to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean contains a provision inserted by conservative lawmakers requiring one-third of the prevention component to be spent on programs stressing abstinence until marriage. In Ethiopia, where 9 percent of the world's HIV cases exist, Tidwell wrote, DKT International has run a prevention program combining abstinence and fidelity messages with reduced-cost condom distribution. In May, Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, praised the decline of infection rates among teen-agers in Addis Ababa..." http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20030721/449_6757.asp What this next article notes - despite its headline - is that "Though the message of condom use has roiled many in this largely Christian nation, evidence indicates that the multimedia advertising campaign designed by young Zambians is helping convince young people to delay sex and reduce the number of their partners, two key factors that experts say could lead to lower infection rates." "...The campaign, dubbed HEART � Helping Each other Act Responsibly Together � is sending out a strong abstinence message and promoting consistent condom use among youths, as part of an attempt to combat the spread of AIDS...Although 75 percent of Zambian youths are sexually active by the time they reach 19, workers with HEART say the campaign is helping young people take the decision more seriously, and encouraging them to be more responsible when they do have sex..." http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0801/p07s01-woaf.htm Again: I personally am all for abstinence until one is mature and can make a mature decision to be in an intimate relationship in a responsible manner, BUT it *cannot* be the only message or mode of preventing the spread of HIV. To think otherwise is naive at best, and callous at worst. Debbi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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