Only the Truth Can Save Us: 'Abstinence-only' won't work

This past Saturday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed fears that the incidence of HIV in America has been underestimated. New figures from the CDC show that -- for more than a decade -- the annual rate of HIV infection has been forty percent greater than reported. According to the CDC, about 56,300 Americans are infected with HIV every year. While this news is harrowing, I applaud the CDC for giving Americans what we desperately need but rarely receive: the truth.

As a religious leader, I am committed to understanding and addressing the truth about HIV. The truth is that HIV is most often spread through sexual contact and that comprehensive sexuality education is critical to reducing HIV infection rates. But the U.S. government has been unwilling to fund comprehensive sexuality education programs that would provide life-saving information.

During the past twenty-five years, the government has spent $1.5 billion on domestic abstinence-only programs -- even though abstinence-only education does not work. A year ago, the British Medical Journal released a study concluding that sexually-transmitted infection (STI) and pregnancy rates were unaffected by abstinence-only programs. Similar results have been found in American studies.

As I have been saying for years, "Just Say No" didn't work in the Garden of Eden, and it doesn't work today. In Unitarian Universalist congregations, we do not avert our eyes from the truth about HIV/AIDS. Instead, we acknowledge that comprehensive sexuality education is the key to helping young people stay healthy, and we provide that education in our own congregations through age-appropriate courses from a unique curriculum called Our Whole Lives.

But programming in religious venues is not sufficient to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic; we need government funding for comprehensive sexuality education in public schools.

Abstinence-only education has had a detrimental impact on the African American population. AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women between 25-34 years of age. It is apparent that the students and recent graduates of public schools are becoming infected. By failing to fund comprehensive sexuality education, the U.S. government is withholding information that could save the lives of young African Americans. To me, and to many other people of conscience, this is worse than dishonest--it is immoral.

The danger extends beyond young African American women to the entire African American community. The Black AIDS Institute recently released a study (PDF file) showing that the population of black Americans living with AIDS outnumbers the populations living with AIDS in each of the following countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Namibia, Rwanda and Vietnam. These are seven of the fifteen countries that receive support from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). HIV/AIDS is a pandemic that crosses every border, and effective prevention efforts are needed worldwide.

With HIV/AIDS infection rates spiraling out of control, many are lauding the U.S. administration's global response, saying that it will be President Bush's legacy. That public sentiment led to the U.S. government's reauthorization of PEPFAR last week. The legislation included an increase in the five-year funding target from $15 billion to $48 billion, a target of recruiting 140,000 new health care workers, and a repeal on the travel ban on HIV-positive visitors to the United States.

Fortunately, an earmark which caused one-third of the past five years of prevention funding to be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs has been removed for future spending. However, it was replaced with a requirement that countries file an explanatory report with Congress if they spend less than half of their prevention funding on abstinence and fidelity programs. Once again, our government is unable to fully acknowledge the truth about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention.

On last year's World AIDS Day, I gathered outside the White House with hundreds of activists, many of whom are currently in Mexico City for the International AIDS Conference.  I led that gathering of activists in a prayer, which I return to now with an even greater sense of urgency.

My prayer is that we will summon the moral courage to honestly confront the spread of HIV/AIDS. My prayer is that we will open our minds and our hearts. My prayer is that our intelligence, our compassion, and our tolerance will allow us to face the truth. Because only the truth--not ideology or wishful thinking--will help us end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.