Tuesday 29 September 2009

Guarding The Guardian

Is this the same Guardian that publishes Peter Tatchell's calls to lower the age of consent to 14, and thus to legalise almost all of the acts for which Tanya Gold berates the Church?

Certain people might consider applying some journalistic or scientific objectivity to the question of where in Africa the condom use relentlessly promoted by Western NGOs and compliant governments has ever arrested, never mind reversed, the rate of HIV infection. There is nowhere.

However, such a reversal is under way in Uganda, where the government's message is the same as the Catholic Church's: "Change Your Behaviour". Huge numbers of condoms have been distributed in Botswana, and the result has been for President Festus Mogae to declare, "Abstain or die".

Who, exactly, is incapable of fidelity within a monogamous marriage and abstinence outside such a marriage? Women? Black people? Poor people? Developing-world people? Or just poor black women in the developing world?

6 comments:

  1. Its all just very silly. Many in the rubble of the left are content to live in fear and anger, and a sort of hollowed-out righteousness, that's all. At least Tanya knows her market....

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  2. The situation in Uganda isn't quite what you say it is, David. Huge numbers of condoms have also been distributed in Uganda. The use of them was relentlessly promoted by the government. The message of the government is NOT "Change Your Behaviour" but ABC: Abstain; Be Faithful; Condoms.

    There is no question that the concerted drive to raise awareness of how HIV is transmitted has been a major factor in curbing its spread. However, it is instructive note that since 2006, driven in part by the abstinence-only message relentlessly promoted by US NGOs, condom and availability and use in Uganda has fallen and this has co-incided with an increase in HIV prevalence.

    See here for details: http://www.avert.org/aidsuganda.htm

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  3. "The situation in Uganda isn't quite what you say it is, David. Huge numbers of condoms have also been distributed in Uganda. The use of them was relentlessly promoted by the government. The message of the government is NOT "Change Your Behaviour" but ABC: Abstain; Be Faithful; Condoms."

    It used to be. But that didn't work. It never does. AB works, though. How could it not?

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  4. It did work. Condom availablity increased tenfold during the nineties, which is the time when Uganda saw the biggest reductions in its AIDS prevalence. Now there are fewer condoms, but as much or more AB, there is an increase in AIDS prevalence.

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  5. Simply not true. Take it up with Festus Mogae.

    If this is working in Uganda, then how come it isn't working anywhere else at all? It doesn't work.

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