December 1, 2005 | Sex & Society

EU breaks with US over AIDS & abstinence

Today is World AIDS Day. And to commemorate the occasion, the European Union did something it has found it's had do increasingly in recent years: It disagreed with the United States on a common sense issue.

In a statement released Thursday, the EU, led by the United Kingdom, emphasized the importance of condoms, sex education and reproductive health services in ending the AIDS pandemic that has been raging since the 1980s.

"We are profoundly concerned about the resurgence of partial or incomplete messages on HIV prevention which are not grounded in evidence and have limited effectiveness," reads the statement, which, without naming names, calls the United States out on President George W. Bush's abstinence obsession. "To be successful, HIV prevention must utilize all approaches known to be effective, not implementing one or few selective actions in isolation."

The statement addresses African nations, in particular, where the rate of HIV infection has spiraled out of control in the last decade. To help solve the problem, the Bush administration has pledged $15 billion over five years to fight HIV and AIDS. Most of those funds, however, are distributed through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which mandates that two-thirds of its funds go to pro-abstinence programs and that none go to organizations that run clinics that offer abortion services or counseling.

Asked directly whether the United Kingdom disagrees with the United States' abstinence policies, international development secretary Hilary Benn told London's the Guardian that, "Abstinence works if people can abstain, but I don't think people should die because they have sex."

Of course, they shouldn't die because they live in the Middle East or on the Gulf Coast, either, but since when is Dubya concerned with casualties?

• People shouldn't die because they have sex [Salon]