First, there are two numbers that get thrown around. Aids prevalance rates and New infection rates.
THe prevalence rate (number of people infected) is affected mostly by treatment. When no treatment is available, the number goes down, because people are dying. With treatment available, it goes up, because people are living.
This number gets thrown around a lot when discussing the recent increases of AIDS in, for example, Uganda. It’s used as an example of Bush’s or the Pope’s policies failing, when in truth, it just a reflection of the US providing more antiretroviral drugs.
If you actually look new infection rates. You will see different trends. In Uganda, the new infection rate correlates far more closely with the abstinence/faithfulness rates than with condom usage. In the 90s, the new infection rate increased slightly, despite massive increases in condom usage. The abstinence/faithfulness rate, however, decreased slightly.
No cites. This information is all over on Google and Wikipedia if you care to look it up.
Condoms are really just a band aid. The reduce the risk, but they do nothing to solve the problem. If you are worried about people bleeding to death, having band-aids around is great, but you need to teach people to modify their behavior so that they aren’t getting cut all the time if you want to actually solve the problem.
After 25 years of trying an unsuccessful method it’s not time to imporve it, it’s time to relaize it doesn’t work. For whatever reason it doesnt and won’t.
Time for plan B.
Now that’s really not going to go down too well with most Catholics.
Dan Savage has a great anecdote about a guy who has sex with a horse or miniature pony. Dan spoke to him on the phone for a radio show and the guy was, shockingly, a bit odd. I think he married the horse, too, or at least had a commitment ceremony. Anyway, at the end of the interview Dan goes, ‘I almost forgot to ask – is it a male or female horse?’ and there’s a pause. The man finally answers, indignantly, ‘A male horse? I am not a homosexual!’
Everyone’s got a personal code, however odd to outsiders and however contradictory. (Of course, when they start applying it to people they are ostensibly trying to help, then it’s time to get angry.)
I don’t think English is your first language, because you obviously neither know the meaning of “fact-free” nor consider your own cite to be factual, because I directly quoted YOUR source.
I don’t think the Africans in question are dumb or promiscuous. Perhaps you should invest in a good dictionary. They don’t use condoms with their regular intimate partners. Obviously, if they realized the risks, they would change their behavior. Education, not withholding condoms, is the answer.
Also, it’s pretty silly to claim that the Pope is against condom use because they haven’t been effective in Africa due to African culture. They are, empirically, provably effective if used correctly. The Pope is advocating that no one use condoms at all, including in the places it has worked. Try some facts next time.
Here is the truth, and no, I cannot tell you where I got this information, for reasons which will be obvious.
The church is purposely using Africa as an evolutionary testbed to produce an HIV resistant human. More condoms means less people/test-units, and less contact with the virus. For this to work, there has to me as many people as possible, and as many of them exposed to the virus as possible.
Once evolutionary pressures result in an HIV resistant person, that person will have his or her genes harvested. The pertinent genes will then be spliced into all the Vatican elite, who are at an increased risk of the virus because of the secret blood-drinking and sodomy rites they must perform.
Moral objections have no plan B, if they had they would not be moral objections, they’d simply be pratical sayings.
A scientific approach to a problem can be evaluated for results and then changed to planB.
The Catholic Church says leave the possibility open for fertility, not that every sex act is for procreation. The enjoyment that bonds a husband and wife is just as important.
The facts that can be concluded from the evidence on hand are:
[ul]
[li]When condoms are used, HIV transmission rates drop[/li][li]There are behavior patterns in many places in Africa that preclude condom use for sociological reasons[/li][/ul]
Neither of those facts support a conclusion that condoms do not work to stop the spread of disease. Neither of these support the conclusion that condom distribution is ineffective. It is not effective enough on its own, but it is not ineffective. And there is certainly no evidence whatsoever to validate the church’s contention that condom use is harmful, while there is ~25 years of science to say, where HIV is concerned, just the opposite is true.
Stating otherwise, as the writer of that editorial has, is a willful and political misstatement of fact.
If sex was for procreation then why do infertile couples, and women past their child bearing ages desire sex? The Church decided sex was just for procreation, not a God.
It is also an expression of love for some people for some a selfish reason for pleasure but the fact that a person can pass on a desease to another is something to prevent using a condom can also prevent a couple from having the need for an abortion. A hammer can do both harm or good depending on how it is used.
The other side of that argument is why does the Church use devices to keep some one on life support when God wants them to die? That can be called artificial, surgery is artificial, medicine can be called artificial if that argument would hold water!
Is there any evidence that what the pope says about condoms actually has any impact on the pandemic in Africa?
I mean if people were influenced so much by the position of the church, they’d all be either abstinent or in monogamous relationships wouldn’t they be?
The RCC church gets what it calls no birth control from the Old Testament where Onan spills his seed. At least that is what a priest told me. I think it is a silly reason, but the church does have the right to make rules for it’s followers. But IMHO it doesn’t make sense because they contradict them selves in many other ways.
The church doesn’t allow birth control even to married couples except to have sex only when a woman cannot concieve which is about as abnormal as any birth control method.
If people didn’t have sex then it is true aids would not be spread as fast. For a person with no sex drive that would work but not for the norm.
The sad part that isn’t brought up as much as having sex with tiny babies, believing that it wll cure aids.