A caution for all you rubber-neckers

[Murphy3]

Catholic Churches Say Condoms Don't Stop AIDS - BBC
Thu Oct 9,11:12 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


LONDON (Reuters) - The lives of Roman Catholics in some of the countries worst hit by HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites) are being put at even greater risk by advice from their churches that the use of condoms does not prevent transmission of the disease, according to a British television program.


If condoms cannot be absolutely guaranteed to block sperm, they stand even less chance of stopping the much smaller virus, the churches' argument runs.


The Roman Catholic church opposes any form of artificial contraception -- particularly condoms, which it says promote promiscuity.


But the traditional opposition is now being reinforced by arguments over their efficacy.


"The moral argument against the use of condoms is being superseded by a clinical argument which is flawed," said Steve Bradshaw, reporter on the BBC Panorama program "Sex and the Holy City" that will be aired in Britain on Sunday night.


"The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon," Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican (news - web sites)'s Pontifical Council for the Family, told the program.


"The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom."


He said that just as health authorities warned about dangers like tobacco, so they had an obligation to issue similar warnings about condoms.


The Archbishop of Nairobi, Raphael Ndingi Nzeki told the program: "AIDS...has grown so fast because of the availability of condoms."


While in Luak near Lake Victoria, Gordon Wambi, director of an AIDS testing center, said he had been prevented from distributing condoms because of church opposition.


Bradshaw told Reuters the program team did not go out looking for the story, but stumbled across it during research.


"We heard the same line so many times from different people in different places that we decided to approach the Vatican," he said.


The World Health Organization (news - web sites), guardian watchdog of global wellbeing, rejected the Vatican view.


"These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million," the WHO told the program.


It conceded condoms could break or be damaged and permit passage of semen, but said they reduced the risk of infection by 90 percent and were certainly secure enough to prevent passage of the virus if not torn.


Panorama said scientific research had found intact condoms were impermeable to particles as small as sexually transmitted infection pathogens -- a view rejected by Trujillo.


"They are wrong about that...this is an easily recognizable fact," he told the program.

From Nicaragua to Kenya and the Philippines, the Panorama team found the same tale from the Catholic church -- that condoms can kill.

No official comment from the Vatican was immediately available on Thursday.

[Murphy3]

Vatican's last word on safe sex - No
By Kelly Burke and agencies
April 2 2003


A new "ethical glossary" issued by the Vatican warns against safe sex and says that condoms do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases.

The 900-page Lexicon On Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms about Family Life and Ethical Questions was prepared by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, a committee on which the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, presides, along with 17 other cardinals and bishops.

Promoted as the Vatican's response to secular society's deteriorating social values, the lexicon queries the use by world leaders and public organisations of 78 key words related to sexuality, condoms, abortion, birth control and genetic engineering.

A section titled "Homosexuality and Homophobia" says that homosexuality stems from an "unresolved psychological conflict" and explains that those who want to give homosexuals equal legal rights "deny a psychological problem which makes homosexuality against the social fabric".

Leaders who encourage the use of condoms for safe sex are running a commercially motivated "exercise in self-justification", the book says, and are concealing the fact that tests show condoms do not work 10 per cent of the time.


But the family glossary has drawn criticism from health professionals and gay rights groups .

The president of the AIDS Council of NSW, Adrian Lovney, said yesterday research had clearly shown that condoms had overwhelmingly succeeded in Australia in preventing HIV/AIDS. The Vatican was trying to construct HIV/AIDS as an exclusively homosexual disease to further demonise gay people, he said.

"I know there are many Christians and Catholics of good will in Australia who will find this kind of reading matter as repugnant as I do," he said.

Professor John Kaldor, the deputy director of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, said that while no responsible person could claim that condom use was 100 per cent effective against the spread of HIV/AIDS, it was undeniable that condoms reduced the chance of transmission substantially.

"I think it's important to separate moral judgement about having sex from the public health issue of protecting people from contracting a deadly sexually transmittable disease," he said.

Dr Pell, who arrived back in Australia from Rome at the weekend, was unavailable for comment yesterday. He also serves as chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference's committee for doctrine and morals. The committee's secretary, Bishop David Walker, said it would be inappropriate to comment until he had seen the book.

Although the Vatican's stand against homosexuality and gay marriages appears to be nothing new, Italian observers say the tone has increased in severity.

"The Vatican has gone from invective to insults," said Mr Franco Grillini, an MP for Italy's biggest opposition party, the Democrats of the Left. "It is precisely because of the Catholic Church's homophobia that homosexuals have difficulties," said Mr Grillini, who is also honorary chairman of Arcigay, an Italian gay rights group.

[Murphy3]

AIDS Challenges Religious Leaders
Opposition to Condoms Is Criticized

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 13, 2001; Page A01


When southern Africa's Roman Catholic bishops held their semiannual meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, last month, the issue at the top of the agenda was a proposal to approve the use of condoms for AIDS prevention.

The bishops -- from South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland -- were well aware that the Vatican bans condoms, regardless of whether their intended use is contraception or disease prevention. But with more than 25 million Africans now infected with HIV/AIDS, many at the meeting felt "we have to be able to say something," said Cape Town Auxiliary Bishop Reginald Cawcutt. "We need the wisdom of Solomon. And we know -- we're really, really aware -- that the world is waiting for us. So is the Vatican."

In the end, the bishops gave the Vatican no cause for concern. After five days of closed-door debate, they pronounced the "widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms . . . an immoral and misguided weapon in our battle against HIV-AIDS." By undermining abstinence and marital fidelity, they said, "condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS."

But the bishops face a dilemma that is not unique to southern Africa, and that is only likely to intensify. As AIDS deaths mount, the pandemic is challenging the world's mainstream religions as much as any event in modern history, seemingly setting at odds their core missions of assuaging human suffering and perfecting human morality.

Nowhere is the conflict more intense or its implications more significant than within the Catholic Church.

Roman Catholicism has been a crucial player in virtually all aspects of the global response to AIDS since the disease was identified 20 years ago. Through its hospices and hospitals, orphanages and parish outreach, the Catholic Church provides more direct care for people with AIDS and their families and communities, particularly in Africa and Latin America, than any other institution.

The Vatican has been at the front of demands for increased international spending on AIDS care and treatment. Pope John Paul II has called the prices charged by major pharmaceutical companies for AIDS drugs "excessive [and] sometimes even exorbitant" and has said the patent and intellectual property rights defended by the companies and the U.S. government are morally inferior to "every individual's right to health."

But the Vatican also has been the world's loudest and most consistent voice in opposition to what the United Nations, most governments and the vast majority of international organizations involved in the AIDS fight say are the most realistic and effective ways to slow the spread of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Church doctrine condemns the use of condoms as twice sinful -- both as contraceptives and as promoters of promiscuity. Much to the consternation and disagreement of public health experts, Vatican spokesmen also regularly question whether condoms prevent sexual transmission of the virus.

The Vatican has rejected prevention campaigns that pay special attention to those at highest risk of HIV infection, including gay men and lesbians, prostitutes and people who inject drugs, saying that such recognition would imply approval of immoral acts. As a result, activists say, the Catholic Church contributes to the widespread stigma and discrimination against people with AIDS.

Among world religions, Roman Catholic leaders are hardly alone in their approach to preventing the spread of AIDS. Warnings that AIDS-related sex education and condom promotion will undermine individual morality and lead to societal destruction have come from Islamic leaders in Pakistan and evangelical Protestants in Jamaica.

In January, the Council of Islamic Clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state condemned a planned seminar on HIV/AIDS prevention as violating Islamic law. Imam Ibrahim Umar Kabo called it a Western "gimmick to spread immorality in our society."

Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who has proclaimed Christianity the state religion, has called condoms "a sign of weak morals." Early this year, Zambian health officials canceled ads prepared for state-run TV and radio after religious leaders said their promotion of condoms would lead to promiscuity.

When the Kenyan government announced plans last month to import 300 million condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, Sheik Mohamed Dor of the Council of Imams and Preachers said the country was "committing suicide" and encouraging sexual experimentation among young people. Bemoaning the expense, President Daniel arap Moi suggested that all Kenyans instead abstain from sex for two years.

Reaction was once similar among religious leaders in the United States, who were forced to confront AIDS much earlier than their counterparts in Africa, Latin America and Asia. "My experience today, reaching out to faith-based organizations in Africa, has a similar quality of 10 years ago in this country," said Jason Heffner of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "You could not get the major [U.S.] leaders to sit down around a table . . . [and] we didn't have the leadership we needed. Now, we see the religious community on board in many ways."

The explosion of AIDS in the developing world has also begun to change some minds. Uganda's Islamic Medical Association was behind a prevention campaign that has become a model. In Niger, Islamic leaders this year recommended that Muslim teachers learn to teach about AIDS and that couples receive premarital HIV testing.

In Senegal, where more than 90 percent of the population is Muslim, the spread of HIV slowed dramatically after Islamic and Christian leaders joined a government AIDS-prevention campaign advocating condoms along with abstinence and fidelity. "Sixteen years ago, people didn't talk about AIDS," Senegalese Imam Ousmane Gueye said during a U.N.-organized visit there last month. "Islam forbids all evil and fornication" as well as condoms, he said, but that teaching has been adapted for people with AIDS to prevent the spread of infection.

"AIDS is . . . not a divine curse," Gueye said. "It is a disease and there is no cure, but you must not run away from people with AIDS."

South Africa's Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane has been instrumental in promoting clerical AIDS education and prevention campaigns, including condom use. The World Council of Churches, representing 342 Protestant and Orthodox Christian churches around the world, is an outspoken supporter of all forms of prevention.

UNAIDS, the umbrella organization of U.N. and World Bank AIDS programs, has produced an HIV-prevention video with quotes from the Koran for Islamic religious leaders. "Our approach has been to work with those church leaders who are open to it," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS.

USAID, the U.S. foreign assistance program, has developed an AIDS outreach program for African religious leaders. But one agency official acknowledged that there are limits to cooperation: "I don't think we're going to, as USAID or the U.S. government, change the position of the Catholic Church."

Debate Within Church

The final speech at a three-day U.N. session on AIDS in June was given by the delegate from the Vatican, who made it clear that the Holy See's participation in the session, which included discussions of homosexuality and prostitution, should not be interpreted as acceptance of immoral behavior.

Moreover, he said, "The Holy See wishes to emphasize that, with regard to the use of condoms as a means of preventing HIV infection" -- a method strongly endorsed in a U.N. General Assembly declaration just moments before -- "it has in no way changed its moral position."

But others in the church are not as sure where the high moral ground lies.

"What we are seeing now is that there is a debate going on in the Catholic Church," Piot said. "Clearly, there are many Roman Catholics who feel uncomfortable with the current official position."

Although the theological debate over AIDS now extends to parishes and dioceses around the world, it began years ago in the more esoteric confines of essays in clerical magazines and quiet conversations among Catholic ethicists.

The debate centers on the "lesser evil" principle. Moral theologian Rev. Richard A. McCormick, quoted in a recently published collection of essays titled "Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention," used drunk driving as an illustration. "We say, 'Don't drive while drunk; let someone else drive.' But supporting the designated driver doesn't mean we support over-drinking. It simply means that we don't want the irresponsibility doubled."

A number of Catholic theologians have questioned whether condoms should be permitted in some cases -- for example, by an HIV-positive man to avoid infecting his wife. Such permission, the theologians argue, does not mean acceptance of the man's presumed infidelity.

In Brazil, the world's largest predominantly Catholic country, government condom distribution and sex-education programs to combat a high infection rate have provoked the sharpest public disagreements within the church hierarchy since the decades-old battles over liberation theology.

When Eugenio Rixen, the Belgian-born bishop of the diocese of Goias, near the capital, Brasilia, shook the national meeting of the Brazilian Pastoral Health Commission last year by calling condom use to prevent HIV a "lesser evil," he was rebuked by the Vatican and by Sao Paulo Archbishop Claudio Hummes, who called such arguments "unacceptable."

"The one thing everyone in the church agrees on is that the problem is very grave, but there are differences in the way in which we think the situation should be handled," said the Rev. Ricardo Rezende, a parish priest in the Brazilian state of Parana and a leading voice on social justice issues. "The church is offering its assistance through programs to those infected with the disease, but the ongoing debate is how to reconcile Vatican doctrine with the realities of modern Brazil."

The church's position on contraception was spelled out in July 1968 by Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, an encyclical prompted in part by the new availability of birth control pills. In it, the pope repeated prohibitions on sex outside marriage and said that every marital act must remain open to the production of children. "Every action" that served to interfere with possible conception was banned, regardless of its intent. It specifically stated that the "lesser evil" concept justified no exceptions, "even for the gravest reasons . . . even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being."

When AIDS appeared in the early 1980s, its concentration among gay men raised no challenges to the doctrine. Homosexual acts were already considered sinful, with or without condoms. But by the 1990s, when AIDS started to spread like wildfire among heterosexuals and in the poorest parts of the world, doctrines began to collide on "a series of issues where social justice teaching cut across bioethics teaching," said the dean of Harvard Divinity School, J. Bryan Hehir, a Roman Catholic priest with long experience in human rights and humanitarian work. "Before, you could pursue most of the social justice and not run into these tensions."

Archbishop Javier Lozana Barragan, the Vatican's chief spokesman on AIDS, said he sees no dilemma. "Is it possible to use condoms?" he asked at a December news conference. "Of course. Many people use them. But if you ask whether they are allowed according to Catholic doctrine, the answer is no because they are not ethically permissible."

'Moral Responsibility'

At the pastoral level, where Catholic shepherds face members of their flock in private, priests can be found at the doctrinal edges and beyond on questions involving AIDS, according to interviews and the writings of a number of Catholic ethicists.

The Rev. Richard Albert, an American who has been a parish priest in Kingston, Jamaica, for two decades, operates a hospice serving people with AIDS. He does not question the Vatican's condemnation of condoms or sex outside marriage. "I honestly believe my moral responsibility is to challenge them to moral living," Albert said of those he ministers to, and it is what he regularly preaches from the pulpit.

But when asked what he counsels on a pastoral level, he says, "I deal with them where they are at."

Piot, of UNAIDS, recounted a visit to a group of Catholic nuns working with orphans and AIDS education in Ivory Coast. "Suddenly, the mother superior showed me a flip chart with a condom on it. I said, 'My goodness, Mother, you're promoting condoms.' She told me: 'When I show this, I speak as a woman and not as a nun.' "

As long as a priest does not deviate from doctrine in public statements, "the chance that [he's] going to get in trouble is very slim," one Catholic cleric said. "This sounds at certain levels like hypocrisy, but at the people level, it's always been recognized."

Organizations like UNAIDS that would like to expand their collaboration with religious institutions care as much about what the church does not say in public as what it does. "What we've asked of the churches, particularly the Catholic Church, is that if you can't say anything nice about condoms, don't say anything at all," said Paul Delay, who heads AIDS programs for USAID. "Concentrate on [abstinence and fidelity] . . . but don't say that condoms don't work or they've got holes in them or they will break. Don't give misinformation."

Piot said finding common ground with religious institutions "has definitely become easier" since he took over UNAIDS five years ago.

"But not with everybody," Piot said. "There is a group in the church that puts, let's say, the dogma before saving lives. And there are hard-liners everywhere.

"Churches have an enormous impact on people's attitudes and morality, although it's not totally effective; otherwise, we wouldn't have an AIDS epidemic," he said. "It's important that they're on board, that they're part of the solution."

Correspondent Anthony Faiola in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.


© 2001 The Washington Post Company

[Murphy3]

From PBS...no info on who wrote this..


People & Events: The Catholic Church and Birth Control

Until the 1930s, the Catholic Church was not alone in its opposition to contraceptives. In the Christian tradition, birth control had long been associated with promiscuity and adultery, and resolutely condemned. However, after the Anglican Church passed a resolution in favor of birth control at its 1930 Lambeth Conference, other Protestant denominations began to relax their prohibitions as well. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church held fast to its opposition.

The Vatican's stand against contraception was centuries old. For much of that time, however, birth control had remained a dormant issue. Since most birth control consisted of folk remedies and homemade cervical caps, there was little cause for the Church to respond. It was the mass production and availability of rubber condoms and diaphragms in the 1920s and 1930s, made possible by the 1839 invention of vulcanized rubber, which eventually forced the Church to take a public position on specific contraceptives.

A Mortal Sin
On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial, since they blocked the natural journey of sperm during intercourse. Douches, suppositories and spermicides all killed or impeded sperm, and were banned as well. According to Church doctrine, tampering with the "male seed" was tantamount to murder. A common admonition on the subject at the time was "so many conceptions prevented, so many homicides." To interfere with God's will was a mortal sin and grounds for excommunication.

The Purpose of Intercourse
For the Vatican, the primary purpose of intercourse was for the sacred act of procreation. If couples were interested in having intercourse, then they had to be willing to accept the potential for the creation of another life. For devout Catholics, that left only abstinence or the church-approved rhythm method (the practice of abstaining from sex during the woman's period of ovulation). However, the rhythm method was unreliable, and many believed it placed a heavy strain on marital relations.

A Reformist Climate
With the arrival of the birth control pill in 1960, many believed the Church was about to change the position it had held for centuries. The Church was in the midst of reform, and in this climate of modernization it seemed possible that the Vatican might bend on birth control. Since 1957, Church law had allowed women with "irregular" cycles to take the Pill to regularize their cycle and enable them to better practice the rhythm method. Approval of the contraceptive pill, many believed, was soon to follow.

"Natural" Contraception
Pro-Pill Catholics had a powerful ally on their side. John Rock, the eminent Catholic physician who had carried out Pill trials with Dr. Gregory Pincus, publicly argued that the Pill was merely an extension of the body's normal functioning. Since the Pill used the same hormones already present in the female reproductive system and did not tamper with sperm, Rock believed the Church should view the Pill as a "natural" form of contraception.

The Vatican convened a commission to study the question of the Pill, but the Church would take eight years to determine its policy towards the Pill. In the interim, the Pill quickly became the most popular method of birth control among American women -- regardless of religion.

[Murphy3]

Health - AFP

African church rejects condom use despite high HIV infection rate
Thu Oct 9,10:16 AM ET Add Health - AFP to My Yahoo!



DAKAR (AFP) - Roman Catholic leaders in Africa have pledged to step up their involvement in the fight against the continent's AIDS (news - web sites) pandemic, but steadfastly refuse to endorse the use of condoms to fight the disease.





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"The church says one must be faithful in marriage and save oneself for marriage," the bishop of Thies in Senegal, Alexandre Mbengue, told AFP at the triennial Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, being held here in the Senegalese capital.


"We cannot say to people, to our youth, to all those who want to use condoms: 'Go ahead, use them' and thus cave in to the current trend," he said.


According to the UN agency UNAIDS (news - web sites), sub-Saharan Africa is hardest hit by AIDS, being home to more than two-thirds of those infected with HIV (news - web sites) or full-blown AIDS worldwide -- 29.4 million out of 42 million.


Nevertheless, the church "cannot condone the use of condoms -- indeed, we are campaigning against just that," said the archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Okogie, recently named a cardinal by Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II.


The archbishop of Kinshasa, Dominique Bulamatari, agreed, saying: "Using condoms as a means of preventing AIDS can only lead to sexual promiscuity."


His counterpart from Kumasi, Ghana, Peter Sarpong, echoed that sentiment almost verbatim, saying that condoms "facilitate sexual licentiousness."


Despite the churchmen's tough words against condoms, Farouk Mohammed, head of Nigeria's AIDS Alliance -- a non-religious, non-profit organisation -- said he has observed a softening of the church's position in the fight against AIDS.


"Excluding condom use, to which the church is still opposed, it is involved now in building awareness in and mobilising its members ... it even encourages them to take part in rallies and seminars on the dangers of the disease," he said.


And a few minority voices among African church leaders condone condom use and urge Africa's Catholics to change their way of thinking to bring it more into line with the times.


Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites) priest Joseph Mpundu, who runs a non-profit organisation involved in the fight against AIDS in the vast central African country, said: "We must not blind ourselves to reality: the condom is one way of stopping AIDS progressing."


Even Thies's archbishop Mbengue said, in a personal capacity: "If abstinence is not entirely possible" -- such as in the case of a married couple in which one spouse is HIV-positive -- "it's better to use an artificial means than to kill oneself."


"That's not the official position of the church, which is constant, but I say it personally, in the name of common sense," Mbengue said.


Gabon's Catholic church "takes the line of the Vatican" but "does not condemn the condom," said Father Jean Kazadi, coordinator of the central African episcopal conference.


"The condom is a stopgap, a lesser evil, but not the solution," said the bishop of Port Louis, Mauritius, Maurice Piat.


"The church's preachings are not about condoms, but about the urgency of fighting AIDS," he added, urging that the battle against the killer disease be waged "not with rubber, but with human resources."


The symposium, which opened on October 1, ends Saturday

[Drbio]

I thought this was going to be a bout car accidents.


Seriously though....I think the Catholic Church is off base on this one. Condoms have been definitively shown to reduce not only pregnancy (obviously) but STD's as well. I understand the Church's desire to promote abstinence and marital sexual encounters, but to completely dismiss the use of condoms when they are shown to protect people is short-sighted to me.



Argue away.....

[Murphy3]

HIV/AIDS Becoming Young Person's Disease
Wed Oct 8, 3:02 PM ET Add Health - AP to My Yahoo!


By JANE WARDELL, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Young people are increasingly responsible for the spread of HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites) around the world because of poverty and a severe lack of information and prevention services, the United Nations (news - web sites) said Wednesday.

Every 14 seconds a person between 15 and 24 is infected with the virus. They now account for half all new cases of the disease, the U.N. Population Fund said in its annual State of the World's Population report.


"We will have a global catastrophe if we ignore young people and ignore their needs," said Thoraya Obaid, the agency's executive director, told a news conference in London.


The "Making 1 Billion Count" report cautions that there is now the biggest generation of adolescents in history — 1.2 billion of the world's 6.3 billion population are between 10 and 19 — and many are facing deadly diseases, unwanted pregnancy and poverty.


HIV/AIDS has emerged as one of the greatest threats. Aside from the high infection rate, the epidemic also has orphaned 13 million children under age 15, the report said.


If those trends continue, the next generation of adults will face greater poverty and stunted economic progress, the report said.


The report estimates the economic benefit of a single averted HIV/AIDS infection is $34,600 for a poor country — and the social benefits are even greater.


It called for more investment in youth-friendly services, family planning and education programs to help young people with reproductive health issues.


"This is a huge opportunity. It is a one-time opportunity that will not occur again," said Alex Marshall, an author of the report.


Poverty is a factor in the spread of HIV, the report said, because some poor girls exchange sex for money for school fees or to help their families, placing them at risk of infection.


Discussing sexual behavior is taboo in many countries, so many young people do not know how to protect themselves. In Somalia, the report says, just 26 percent of adolescent girls have heard of AIDS and only 1 percent know how to protect themselves.


Obaid said she didn't believe educating youngsters about safe sex would make them more sexually active.


"I would like to stress that giving young people this information is safe, it doesn't lead to promiscuous behavior, as some people say," she said. "On the contrary, it empowers young people to take positive action in their lives and may save their lives as well."


Obaid said the U.N. agency's core message was "ABC" — abstaining from sexual activity, being faithful to one partner and the correct use of condoms.


In sub-Saharan Africa, which has the most cases of HIV/AIDS among youths, about 8.6 million have HIV/AIDS — two-thirds of them female. In South Asia, 1.1 millions youths are infected — 62 percent of them female.


The rate of new infections also is growing rapidly in countries like India and Russia, Marshall said.


The U.N. report also said poverty, early marriage, unwanted pregnancy and homelessness were major issues facing the world's adolescents. Half are poor and a quarter live in extreme poverty — less than a dollar a day.


Among the poorest and least-educated populations, early marriage of girls and expectations of early childbearing persist, contributing to high maternal mortality and reducing girls' chances for education.

Teenage mothers are twice as likely to die in childbirth as women in their 20s; girls under 16 are five times more likely to die than women in their 20s, and 14 million young mothers aged 15-19 give birth each year. About 5 million girls between 15 and 19 undergo unsafe abortion every year, the report said.

[Murphy3]

U.N. youth report a 'wake-up call'
Wednesday, October 8, 2003 Posted: 8:43 AM EDT (1243 GMT)



China estimates it has 500,000 HIV carriers but U.N. warns of 10 million cases by 2010.

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(CNN) -- Poverty, early pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV/AIDS among adolescents are a threat to development and must be addressed as part of the war on poverty, according to the U.N.

The State of the World report released Wednesday said a fifth of the world's population was between the ages of 10 and 19 so it was important for societies to invest in programs that fight these trends.

"This report is a wake-up call," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, which prepared the report, entitled "Making 1 Billion Count: Investing in Adolescents' Health and Rights."

"It is a wake-up call to listen to young people and acknowledge their needs. It is a wake-up call to increase funding and expand information and services to young people. It is a wake-up call to support them so that they can lead healthy, productive and dignified lives," she said.

Defined as people between the ages of 10 and 19, adolescents, more than 1.2 billion of the world's population, must be "given skills, opportunities and a real say in development plans," the report said.

The report said half of them were poor and 25 percent live in "extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day."

About 82 million girls between 10 and 17 will marry, a development that disrupts their education. About 14 million teens, married and unmarried give birth each year, with many of them getting unsafe abortions and getting pregancy-related illnesses.

It said "half of new HIV infections and at least a third of more than 333 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections each year occur in people aged 15 to 24."

"Millions of girls in poor countries still get married and give birth in their teens, interrupting their education and endangering their health. For many other girls and boys, the trend is toward later marriage but greater exposure to the risks of unprotected sexual activity.

"All, whether rich or poor, married or not, urban or rural, in school or out, have a right to information and services to safeguard their sexual and reproductive health. Girls and young women need better protection against discrimination, coercion and gender-based violence."

The report said that around the world "innovative programs are teaching adolescents about reproductive health and showing how relevant health services can be made more "youth-friendly" to increase their use." It said laws and policies were being developed "to give greater attention to adolescents' needs and rights."

Not pursuing such programs to help adolescents "will perpetuate poverty, inequality, unsustainable population growth and HIV/AIDS."

Selling sex
Obaid said there was "clear evidence from Africa, Asia and Latin America that well-designed informaton and education programs do lead to safer, healthier behavior."

"Actions to ensure these human rights can have tremendous practical benefits, empowering individuals, promoting gender equality, stemming the HIV/AIDS pandemic, reinforcing an uneven global trend towards smaller families, reducing poverty and improving prospects for economic progress."

The report said investments in health and education would help countries in the long run.

"For instance, seven Caribbean region countries would save around $235 on average each year in direct and economic costs for each adolescent birth delayed.

"The return on preventing more HIV infection among young people is even higher, in terms of avoiding the costs of arrested development, lost agricultrual output, excess training to provide for personnel losses, health facility overloads, treatment (where available) and care, among other factors.

"The econmic benefit of a single averted HIV/AIDS infection is estimated at $34,600 for a poor country with annual per capital earnings of $1,000."

HIV/AIDS is spreading fastest, the report said, among youths in sub-Saharan Africa, where about 8.6 million youths are infected -- 62 percent of them female. South Asia follows, with 1.1 million youths infected -- 62 percent of them female.

The report said poverty was a factor in the spread of HIV because some poor girls sell sex for money for school fees or to help their families.

Talking about sex is taboo in many countries so many young people do not know enough about the virus that causes AIDS to protect themselves. In Somalia, for example, only 26 percent of adolescent girls had heard of it and just one percent knew how to protect themselves.

[LRB]

What's the difference between promiscuous behavior with condoms and promiscuous behavior without condoms? I can see the point of religion on taking a stand against promiscuous behavior, but why would it be OK as long as you didn't use condoms? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

[mavs_afroman]

Originally posted by: Drbio
I thought this was going to be a bout car accidents.


Seriously though....I think the Catholic Church is off base on this one. Condoms have been definitively shown to reduce not only pregnancy (obviously) but STD's as well. I understand the Church's desire to promote abstinence and marital sexual encounters, but to completely dismiss the use of condoms when they are shown to protect people is short-sighted to me.



Argue away.....

I'm not Catholic so i could be wrong but I think Catholics are against any form of contraceptive period, in marriage or otherwise.
No birth control not nothin'. So it has more to do with that I think than anything else.

[veruca salt]

Originally posted by: LRB
What's the difference between promiscuous behavior with condoms and promiscuous behavior without condoms? I can see the point of religion on taking a stand against promiscuous behavior, but why would it be OK as long as you didn't use condoms? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

That's the ridiculous part, they're not saying it's ok without condoms, they're taking the incredibly naive view point
that people wouldn't be promiscuous without condoms [img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]
That condoms make people think it's ok to be promiscuous. Shows how out of touch with the real world they are.
Also I don't think anyone has ever advertised condoms as being 100% safe, is there anyone here that
has thought that at any stage in their lives?
Obviously abstinence is the only 100% safe form of contraception/STD protection....

[LRB]

Obviously abstinence is the only 100% safe form of contraception/STD protection....

Actually the Catholics claim 1 exception to this rule as well. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Chiwas]

Sex and the Holy City



<u>Sex and the Holy City will be broadcast on BBC One on Sunday, 12 October, 2003 at 22:15 BST.</u>

This week marks 25 years since Pope John Paul was elected to Saint Peter's throne. Yet as his reign is celebrated, millions of women around the world may feel they have reason to regret his long rule - and the global battles he has waged against contraception, abortion and promiscuity.

In the West, even many Catholics ignore the Church's teachings on sex. But in poorer countries - from where the next Pope may emerge - the words of the priest on sex still matter, whether spoken from the pulpit or to a government minister.

The Pope believes everyone - not just the world's billion Catholics - should follow the Vatican's teaching.

And he's tried to make sure the world listens - becoming a key player in the bitter global debate over women's rights and reproductive health.

Panorama has travelled across four continents to talk to those directly affected by the Pope's hardline doctrine on sex, to pro-lifers who've taken control of Manila's health clinics, banning the Pill and condoms, to the Archbishop of Nairobi who blames condoms for the spread of AIDS, even as members of his own congregation die of the virus...and to schoolgirls raped by their own father, yet forced to carry his babies to term.

All on behalf of a Pope who once helped a predecessor to reject the Pill against the views of the Vatican's own advisors.

In this unique documentary, Steve Bradshaw investigates how the Pope who tried to act in the best interests of women came to be accused by his opponents of ruining so many lives.

[Murphy3]

Instead of speaking out against condoms, perhaps the Catholic church should just speak out against sexaul intercourse before marriage. No reason to attack condoms for those people that ARE going to have premarital sex.

[mavs_afroman]

Originally posted by: Murphy3
Instead of speaking out against condoms, perhaps the Catholic church should just speak out against sexaul intercourse before marriage. No reason to attack condoms for those people that ARE going to have premarital sex.

but they're also against married couples using condoms.

[Murphy3]

yep, mavsafroman..that's a different point entirely.

i was just commenting on the line of thinking earlier in the thread where someone mentioned that it's ridiculous for the Catholic Church to believe that promoting condoms for safe sex is promoting premarital sex.

but yearh, the marriage/condom thing..well, that's a different issue entirely