Trouble in the Bedroom
Bush’s bedroom, that is. What happens when wife Laura smacks him in the face and says, “George, your policy sucks.”
Never mind that the man just pardoned a traitor to the United States of America…a man who betrayed his country…but that’s another story which I don’t want to get into.
Bedroom antics are more in tune with this blog. Here’s a hot news release, fresh off the press from the The Center for Health and Gender Equity. I know, the very name probably makes the Prez and his comrades queasy.
First Lady Laura Bush Supports Waiver of Abstinence-Until-Marriage Earmark in PEPFAR
Washington, DC: During her trip to several African countries, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush told CNN that, while she believes abstinence is an important component of prevention efforts, she has no problem with Congress waiving the requirement that 1/3 of U.S. global prevention funding be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs. Mrs. Bush was talking about the language passed by Congress that waives the abstinence-until-marriage earmark in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). According to CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux, Bush said “she found that idea perfectly fine.”
Serra Sippel, Acting Executive Director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), welcomed the First Lady’s comment: “Laura Bush and the President have been strong proponents of ineffective ideologically-driven HIV-prevention programs, so we welcome Mrs. Bush’s support for the waiver of the abstinence-until-marriage earmark. Now it’s up to Congress and the President to make that waiver a reality.”
In the program that aired on July 3, 2007, Malveaux highlighted findings by the Institute of Medicine and the Government Accountability Office, which “concluded that mandatory commitment to abstinence programs is actually ‘undermining the global efforts to prevent 7 million new HIV infections by 2008.’”
The Institute of Medicine stated in its March 2007 report on PEPFAR that it was “unable to find evidence for the position that abstinence can stand alone [as a prevention message],” yet in fiscal year 2006, 11 million of the people reached by PEPFAR’s prevention programs received only abstinence information and an additional 29 million people received only abstinence and be-faithful information.
“The abstinence-until-marriage earmark is one of the greatest hurdles to ensuring that every person has the knowledge and tools necessary to protect his or her life, or the life of a loved one,” explained Sippel. “The restriction especially puts at risk women and youth because messages such as abstain-until marriage and be-faithful in marriage perpetuate the false assumption that marriage will protect individuals from HIV infection.”
Elizabeth Mataka, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, who has been praised by the First Lady during her visit to Africa, stated in the interview that it is a violation of rights to deny youth comprehensive information about HIV prevention.
Sippel, who is currently in Kenya for an international women’s AIDS Conference, stated, “I’ve heard from woman after woman at the International Women’s Summit in Nairobi about the importance of comprehensive HIV prevention programs that include access to female and male condoms and that address the realities of people’s lives and the factors that increase vulnerability including violence and lack of educational and economic opportunities. The 1/3 abstinence-until-marriage requirement squeezes these comprehensive programs out and leaves the people receiving only abstinence-until-marriage messages vulnerable.”
On June 21, the House of Representatives passed its State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill which included a provision that would waive the 1/3 abstinence-until-marriage earmark for fiscal year 2008, allowing the President to decide how best to allocate prevention funds to address the needs of countries receiving PEPFAR funds. The Senate Appropriations committee passed the same provision in its State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill and the full Senate is expected to vote on the bill in July or September.
The CNN video can be found at http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/07/03/malveaux.laura.bush.aids.cnn
So not even his wife supports his damning policies. Very interesting and I hope we hear more about this. Trouble in paradise, hmm…
I certainly hope that nurses are ignoring this nonsense, and giving patients the information that they need, whenever they can. If a teen asks how to protect herself from getting AIDS, or even getting pregnant, please don’t tell her to cross her legs and wait for the bliss of holy matrimony. The reality is–the girl has probably already had sex but is getting smart and wants to protect herself. And in many nations around the world, this girl may be about to be sold off to an older man who is already infected.