6-2-2002 Sydney Morning Herald:

Sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase in Australia, despite the availability of condoms and heightened AIDS-awareness, health authorities said today.

Viral infections such as genital warts and herpes are becoming more prevalent, researchers at the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Research Centre at Sydney's Westmead Hospital have found.

Adrian Mindel, director of the new centre, said health clinics had recorded a marked increase in STI cases.

The centre, which is part of the Sydney University campus, was officially opened by federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson.
"Most adults have sex, it's an enjoyable part of life ... but many people aren't aware of what consequences there are," Professor Mindel said.
"Most people are knowledgable about the threat of HIV, but not so much about what STIs there are because they're seen as of less importance."
Prof Mindel said the research centre would aim to increase awareness about the risks of STIs.

"We'll be looking to understand why people contract infections and how to better treat them when they do."

He said the most effective way of controlling the infections was to provide services and thorough research and training.

In 2000, there were more than 16,000 notified cases of chlamydia, almost 6,000 cases of gonorrhoea and almost 2,000 cases of syphilis.
"However, these figures are likely to be an underestimate, as a considerable proportion of individuals infected with these bacteria will remain asymptomatic," he said.

AAP

-----------------------------------

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In announcing his proposal of $135 million for abstinence education programs, President Bush made the following statement today regarding the government's role in educating children about sex education:
"Abstinence is the surest way and the only completely effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. When our children face a choice between self-restraint and self-destruction, government should not be neutral. Government should not sell children short by assuming they are incapable of acting responsibly. We must promote the good choices."
THE FACTS:

• In July 2001, the National Institutes of Health issued a report, which found insufficient evidence that condoms effectively protect people from the majority of sexually transmitted diseases.

* According to the panel of 28 experts who assembled the report based on data from numerous studies, condom use can reduce the risk of gonorrhea for men and HIV transmission for men and women. However, there was no evidence that condoms prevent transmission of chlamydia (which can lead to infertility and tubal pregnancy), syphilis, female gonorrhea, herpes, chancroid (which can increase the chances of getting HIV), trichomoniasis, or human papillomavirus (the number one cause of cervical cancer).

The authors present 3 arguments in favor of providing reorientation and
related services: (a) respect for the autonomy and self-determination of
persons, (b) respect for valuative frameworks, creeds, and religious values regarding the moral status of same-sex behavior, and (c) service provision given the scientific evidence that efforts to change thoughts, behaviors, and feeling-based sexual orientation can be successful.

Source: LifeSite Daily News (lsn@lifesite.net <mailto:lsn@lifesite.net>)

According to a United Nations report released on June 23, 2002, the UN's
massive effort to supply the world with condoms in a bid to stem the
spread of HIV/AIDS is failing. After exhaustive analysis of survey data
from developing countries around the world, the Population Division of the
UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs has concluded that the
ready availability of condoms has not significantly altered individuals'
sexual behavior.

In "HIV/AIDS, Awareness and Behaviour," the Population Division
bluntly asserts that "Much effort has been spent on promoting the
prophylactic use of condoms as part of AIDS prevention. However, over the years, the condom has not become more popular among couples." The report goes on to claim that, despite widespread knowledge of AIDS and easy access to condoms, "Only a small percentage of respondents began using condoms to prevent HIV transmission. Fewer than 8 per cent of women in all countries surveyed reported that they had changed their behaviour by using condoms. Among married women, the percentages were particularly low."
The report claims that most women desire children, and are thus
unwilling to use prophylactics that also act as contraceptives. The report
states that "In a number of Western and Central African countries, the
difficulty in promoting the use of condoms is compounded by the fact that
the large majority of women who are sexually active intend to become
pregnant; therefore, they are not likely to resort to using the condom."
In what may come as a surprise to "safe sex" advocates such as the
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the report contends that the only significant behavioral change has been towards more monogamous relationships. The report states that, "Among those respondents, whether male or female, who did change their behaviour, the most frequently cited change had entailed confining sexual activity to one partner." The study also concludes that "In several countries, a significant number of men.reported that they had discontinued sexual contacts with prostitutes to avoid getting infected."
During the recent UN Child Summit, the US delegation's efforts to
further encourage sexual abstinence and monogamy were defeated, mainly at the behest of the European Union. It is possible that, in light of the findings of the Population Division, the US position will gain prominence in future UN debates on AIDS prevention.

On May 24, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed former UNFPA
head Nafis Sadik as his special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia. Under Sadik's
direction, UNFPA was the world's largest supplier of condoms, and UNFPA's AIDS-prevention program focused overwhelmingly on the promotion of condom use. It is unclear how Sadik will integrate the conclusions of the Population Division report into her new initiative. According to a UN press release, Sadik will be responsible for spearheading "an expanded, multisectoral response to HIV/AIDS" throughout Asia.

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute.

c-fam@c-fam.org

---------------------------

WASHINGTON, DC -- "Dr. David Paton is to be commended for providing evidence that backs up what we've been saying for years," said De Szymkowiak, national director of STOPP International, a division of American Life League. "Planned Parenthood is the problem, not the solution, when it comes to teen pregnancy and abortion."

Dr. David Paton's study, "The Economics of Family Planning and Underage Conceptions," was published in the March 2002 issue of the Journal of Health Economics. Paton concluded, "Using a range of specifications, I find no evidence that greater access to family planning has reduced underage conceptions or abortions. Indeed, there is some evidence that greater access is associated with an increase in underage conceptions in our sample."

Dr. Paton, senior lecturer in industrial economics at Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, investigated the impact of family planning on teenage conceptions and abortions by testing data from 16 UK regions over 14 years. He also concluded, "Measures which improve educational and work prospects of those groups most at risk seem likely to help achieve the stated aim of reducing underage conceptions."

"By providing contraceptives to kids, Planned Parenthood has helped fuel teen sexual activity, which leads to teen pregnancy and abortion," said Szymkowiak. "Yet our federal, state and local governments have failed to realize this and continued to fund Planned Parenthood to the tune of $202.7 million during Planned Parenthood's 2001 fiscal year. Dr. Paton's conclusions suggest that this money would be better spent on education and job training."

-----------------------------

KAMPALA, July 22, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Uganda may be on its way to wiping out AIDS by using a strategy based on chastity and fidelity, according to
findings in a Harvard University study. The Harvard study credits
abstinence education with "significant effectiveness in reducing AIDS in
Uganda," a newswire reports -- "with the HIV infection rate dropping 50
percent between the years 1992 and 2000."

Uganda uses billboards, radio announcements and chastity-based curricula to promote abstinence and faithfulness. The result has been a gradual, steady drop in HIV infection rates. If the report is welcomed honestly and with a real commitment to reduce suffering, then Uganda could become a model for worldwide AIDS prevention.

Source: LifeSite Daily News (lsn@lifesite.net <mailto:lsn@lifesite.net>)

----------------------------------

---------------------------------

November 8 2002 Sydney Morning Herald

Whether for religious or secular reasons, in a world awash with sex, celibacy is a growing trend. Rebecca Fowler reports.

If ever there was a hint that a sexual counter-revolution may be afoot among the young who have grown up in an age of unprecedented sexual openness, then it is to be found among a British group of "New Puritans"; young Catholics who are eagerly practising what they preach, including a strict ban on sex before marriage. "Chastity is fundamental to our lives," says Paul Bray, 21. "For us, it means real freedom and it's far more radical than anything else on offer. There's a feeling of renewal among young people. We are no longer under false illusions about the world and we are no longer slaves to the notion that anything goes." Bray aside, it is the more extreme followers of celibacy who are setting the climate of new puritanism. With their lifelong vows and the daily crushing of their "natural urges" - masturbation is also strongly discouraged - they refuse to contemplate at which point purity might risk turning withered, and chastity turning bitter. This, after all, is a generation that has inherited the legacy of '60s permissiveness without ever witnessing the suffocating repression of the '50s. In the US, chastity is the fastest-growing youth movement. The biggest single group of celibates, True Love Waits, founded a decade ago, has more than 500,000 members, including 12,000 Australian followers. All have signed pledges that they will "save themselves" until marriage, and they flaunt their message across high schools and college campuses. Bumper stickers, T-shirts, posters, scarves and baseball caps carry slogans such as "Stop your urgin', be a virgin" and "Do your homework, not your girlfriend".

Even those young Americans who have lost their virginity are invited to "reclaim" it with a pledge in which they promise not to sleep with anyone else until they are married. This notion of "secondary virginity" is spreading among American brides who are reclaiming their virginity for their wedding nights. It is now common in some states, especially in the South, to abstain from sex for up to a year before marriage.

"Embracing chastity after losing one's virginity is like rewrapping your gift of sexuality," True Love Waits says. "It is ready to be opened again on your wedding night."

The irony of these "secondary virgins" has astounded sociologists. "I find the mental gymnastics incredible," Walter Edgar, a professor of southern studies at the University of South Carolina, says.

"The horse is already out of the gate. You're either a virgin or not."

But in an age where, to some, sex has been exhausted to the point of becoming unsexy, purity is the new luxury, and chastity a more subversive option than promiscuity.

In England a disenchanted Catholic barrister, who wanted a return to the church's traditional teachings for young people a decade ago, set up Youth 2000, the old world's answer to True Love Waits. It's less savvy than its American counterpart but has startled more liberal Catholics with its popularity.

At the Youth 2000 Yorkshire headquarters, lying on a desk underneath a framed copy of Dali's Crucifixion , is the textbook for aspiring celibates: The Courage To Be Chaste by Father Benedict Groeschel, who runs the evangelical Grassroots Renewal Project in the US. Groeschel paints a terrifying portrait of the chaste diving for cover in a world bombarded by sex and populated by "fleshpots" luring them back.

"Half the people you meet on the bus or in a shopping centre, or even a church on Sunday, have had some genital sexual experience during the preceding few days," Groeschel says. "The single person lives in a world of continuous sexual bombardment. The media trumpets the message that sex brings happiness. If this were true, we would indeed live in an earthly paradise and the world would be 'happy valley'."

Members of Youth 2000 are far more welcoming than the book but no less fixed in their views. Bray, as a trainee priest, has opted for a life of celibacy at 21. Tilly Callaghan, also 21, and Frances Pollard, 28, are both considering joining convents and taking lifelong vows of chastity. Mark Northrop, 20, intends to spend next year as part of a "chastity team" preaching celibacy in secondary schools around Britain.

Describing why he is prepared to give up sex, marriage and the possibility of children for the rest of his life, Bray says he is surprised by how older, more liberal priests are shocked by his faith. "I've met a lot of priests from the '60s and '70s and what they hold dear in their faith is very different over issues like sex before marriage and contraception.

"They're far more lenient, although they wouldn't say so openly. They think of themselves as progressive, but to me that is not what faith is about. You can't start deciding the rules for yourself, it's not a question of degree," Bray says.

The Youth 2000 members are affectionate with each other, but boundaries are clearly drawn. There is a girls' house and a boys' house, and all volunteers at the office pledge not to have even a chaste relationship with a member of the opposite sex for the year that they work at the Yorkshire headquarters.

At the girls' house it is tea-time and the dining room is lined with photos of other supporters. They point out one photo of a smiling girl, Catherine, who became a nun in a closed order after turning down a place at Cambridge to read medicine. Another, Laura, was studying at the London College of Fashion but is now at a Franciscan convent in the Bronx in New York.

Pollard, a shy young woman with pale blue eyes, is going to visit Laura's convent with a view to joining. She grew up in a devout Catholic family, and studied occupational therapy in Leeds, working with psychiatric patients.

When she fell in love for the first and only time, at 23, it was with a US soldier. He was not religious but he laughed at her jokes and made her feel special. "I used to be paranoid and my esteem was so low," she says. "I was using the relationship to try to lift my confidence. Rather than knowing myself and being happy with myself, I was stuck in this up and down cycle. I was a Mills & Boon girl. I loved all that stuff. Romances, Jane Austen - I had this idea of what a man was going to be like. He'd sweep in and say, I want to marry you, and he'd totally love and respect you ... it never happened."

After eight months her refusal to have sex with her American boyfriend broke the relationship. He returned home. Standing beside a large statue of the Virgin Mary she has realised it may be God's will that she follows a life of chastity. She will be a Bride of Christ.

Celibacy reborn is not just a Christian phenomenon. Outside Glasgow's central mosque, boys in traditional Islamic dress play football while their veiled mothers wait for them in the car park.

Inside, a group of young men who call themselves "the circle" have arrived for their weekly meeting to discuss the Koran. Those who are single do not have girlfriends and expect to have arranged marriages. Those who are married remain celibate during Ramadan between sunrise and sunset, and consider adultery a crime worthy of stoning.

Nadeem, 30, had a rude boy [hooligan] career, including sex, drugs and a stint in jail for armed robbery. He read the Koran in prison and emerged a devout Muslim. "It taught me how to respect the opposite sex and view them as I'd expect others to view my mother or sisters," he says. "Before Islam, if I saw an attractive female, it would be 'I wouldn't mind a bit of that'. Now we're told to purify ourselves and lower our gaze," he says.

He will not sit in a room alone with a young woman. "I'm working for a debt collecting agency. The majority of my clients are single mothers and I feel really sorry for them. The laws of Islam came from the Creator because he knows what is best for us. There are laws that I don't like, but because I know they're for my own good I accept them and the Creator says it is wrong to have sex before marriage."

Undoubtedly, the push towards chastity is being led by the religious, who have the most to gain as they consider the darkest details of the afterlife. But it is not their exclusive preserve. At a pub in north London, two women discuss their new-found celibacy over glasses of wine. Nicola Baxter, a 29-year-old drama teacher, explains that she had endured three consecutive relationships with thirtysomething professional men, in which each ending was a bit more desultory, and now was abstaining from sex. "It's really refreshing just removing it as an option and concentrating on other things. I'm sure you learn to focus that energy elsewhere. And you no longer feel a freak. I've got friends of both sexes who feel the same. Just for now, I'm happier going home with myself."

Baxter claims that being celibate for three months has given her a more spiritual sense of life. She is convinced the energy she might once have put into sex and boyfriends is now focused elsewhere.

The reassertion of chastity may be driven by fear of the hereafter but it is hard not to wonder whether what they fear most of all is the big, bewildering here and now, where nothing is certain. A world they have closed out in favour of a safe place without danger or confusion or disappointment - let alone infection - and where, for the moment at least, they belong. That, along with God, is what gets them through those long, still nights.

A Love Brother born again Jason Stevens, the Cronulla Sharks rugby league player, gained a lot of publicity when he announced he had given up sex and had dedicated himself to chastity until his wedding day.

He is one of the True Love Waits pin-up boys, his story an example to the 12,000 young Australians who have joined the organisation since 1995 with its philosophy of embracing public celibacy as a lifestyle choice.

In a world where footballers tend to be given bad boy roles, Stevens developed a latent pure streak. He wrote a book, Worth the Wait, to assist others on the rocky road to abstinence. Stevens lost his virginity so long ago that he cannot remember where. On the True Love Waits website, Stevens, 29, says that until three years ago he was living in the fast lane. "I was at a point where I literally couldn't stop flirting with loads of girls, then going to bed with them."

Stevens and his brother Paul, a former Shark, were notorious playboys. "It was so bad that my brother and I were nicknamed The Love Brothers," he says.

But his older brother says he was going to hand his life over to Christ - and that meant waiting until marriage. Stevens followed his brother's example.

"It was weird at first. To be totally honest with you, I really struggled. Sex had really consumed my life and I found it hard to adjust," he says on the website.

"When you have sex with all these different girls, you can send back all the photos and you can send back the ring when you've broken up. But you can't send back the memories that are fixed in your mind. Those memories take away from your next relationship.

"Basically, what I'm saying is, I want to respect my future wife. I don't know her yet and I haven't met her. But I am going to save myself for her."

------------------------------

8-11-02. The Vatican on Wednesday repeated its opposition to condom use to fight AIDS, saying chastity was the best way to prevent the spread of HIV. There is only one way to prevent HIV from spreading, the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers asserted. "We say that prevention... is called chastity."

View <http://www.abstinence.net/ArticleDetail.cfm?ArticleID=398> for more details.

---------------------------

PRI Weekly Briefing, 22 November 2002, Vol. 4/ No. 29

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was welcomed to the Indian city of Hyderabad last week by a giant air-filled condom. The 8-foot monstrosity brought a smile to the face of the world's richest man, who was there to announce a $100 million AIDS program to be financed by his foundation.(1)

Hyderabad, of course, is the site of Microsoft's first software development center outside the United States. Gates's glee may have been prompted by the thought of all the goodwill that his generosity would buy among the Indian people. By blanketing the country with condoms, he would single-handedly stop the spread of HIV.

Perhaps Gates is unaware of what a failure condom-pushing programs have been in the past:

* The Center for Disease Control has reluctantly, but accurately, questioned the effectiveness of condoms in protecting against sexually transmitted diseases, noting that the failure rate for condoms can be as high as 15%.(2)

* The highly-regarded international peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet, in 2000 published an article in which the authors argued that the massive distribution of condoms in conjunction with a "safe sex" message may actually help spread the HIV virus.(3)

* The pro-abortion Allan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) notes a condom failure rate as high as 17.6%.(4)

* The condom failure rate in the West is so high that over 65% of approximately 3,000 condom users surveyed discontinued use after 24 months.(5)

A new UN report suggests that monogamy, not condoms, is the answer to the AIDS epidemic.(6)

• Even Gates's own foundation has effectively dissed condoms. On the limited utility of AIDS prevention methods among African women, the Gates Foundation states that "if it diminishes sexual pleasure, it is unlikely to be used reliably."(7)

• Condoms have other drawbacks as well. They can lead to increased rates of abortion as a back-up method of so-called family planning. They can cause cervical cancer.(8) And, as was recently documented in Tanzania, substandard condoms-which can contribute directly to the spread of disease-are a problem.(9)
  
  The Gates Foundation's AIDS project in India claims to fulfill, among others, the unmet need for AIDS prevention among prostitutes and their clients, "truck drivers, migrant laborers, [and] construction workers" who are "a key group to reach" for AIDS prevention.(10) But why encourage these high risk groups, which are already riddled with the disease, to play Russian roulette with their lives? A one-in-six failure rate after two years means that many will sooner or later contract the disease, condoms or no. And what about the rights of women who are reduced to "sex work"? For them, the world's richest man offers only false promises of protection and continued bondage.

All of this leads one to wonder what the real intent of the Gates Foundation is: AIDS eradication or population control. The Foundation is, after all, closely allied with the leading of population control organizations. The Gates Foundation gave $1.7 million to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in 1998,(11) for example, at a time when that organization was supporting involuntary sterilization programs in Peru,(12) and involuntary abortion in China.(13)

The promotion of condoms, however uncertain its effect on the AIDS epidemic, has a definite and depressing effect on fertility. Couples wearing condoms won't be having children in any numbers. The popularity of "AIDS education programs" among the anti-people movement is explained by this convergence. AIDS education, as currently practiced, is population control.

ENDNOTES

1. Reuters, "Bill Gates Welcomed with Huge Condom," November 14, 2002.

2. Concerned Women for America for Kansas, "The Latest Skirmish in the Condom Wars," August 23, 2002.

3. See: PRI's Weekly Briefing, "AIDS and Population Control in Africa," August 8, 2000.

4. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Contraceptive Failure, Method-Related Discinuation and Resumption of Use," by James Trussel and Barbara Vaughan, in Family Planning Perspectives, Volume 31, No. 2, March/April 1999.

5. Ibid.

6. UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, "HIV/AIDS, Awareness and Behaviour," June 23, 2002.

7. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, "Protecting Women: The Global Microbicides Project and the Search for an AIDS Barrier," 2002; www.gatesfoundation.org/storygallery/microbicides.htm <http://www.gatesfoundation.org/storygallery/microbicides.htm>.
8. Agape Press, "Congressman Fears 'Safe Sex' Myth Could Spur Cancer Outbreak," By Bill Fancher, March 13, 2002.

9. Africa News Service," Shipment of 10 Million Condoms Blocked," April 23, 2002.
10. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, "Gates Foundation Announces $100 Million HIV/AIDS Prevention Effort in India," 2002;

www.gatesfoundation.org/globalhealth/hivaidstb/hivaids/announcements <http://www.gatesfoundation.org/globalhealth/hivaidstb/hivaids/announcements>.
11. Catholic World News, "Bill Gates Gives to Population Control Fund," April 23, 1998.

12. Final Report Concerning Voluntary Surgical Contraception During the Years 1990-2000; Subcommittee Investigation of Persons and Institutions Involved Voluntary Surgical Contraception, June 2002.

13. Analysis of Determination that Kemp-Kasten Amendment Precludes Further Funding to UNFPA under Pub. L. 107-115, US State Dept., July 21, 2002.

---------------------------

FRIDAY FAX December 13, 2002 Volume 5, Number 51

We are told ad nauseam by the Condom Lobby that people, especially
youngsters, cannot possibly control themselves when it comes to their
sexual appetites, even in the face of AIDS infection and death. We are
also told that condoms are the panacea for this dread disease. The Condom Lobby is loath to speak about sexual abstinence and marital fidelity.
There is one country, however, that has mostly ignored the Condom Lobby and instituted widespread abstinence and fidelity programs and this
country is so far beating AIDS. Uganda should be congratulated for
fighting back against the very powerful Condom Lobby. We report today on their success:

As AIDS sweeps across Africa, Uganda remains a lone success story,
as millions of Ugandans have embraced traditional sexual morality,
including sexual abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage, in order to avoid infection. But the international AIDS community has been reluctant to promote this strategy elsewhere, continuing, instead, to place its faith in condoms.

According to a US Agency for International Development (USAID)
study of Uganda, "HIV prevalence peaked at around 15 percent in 1991, and had fallen to 5 percent as of 2001.This dramatic decline in prevalence is unique worldwide." USAID believes "The most important determinant of the reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks."

In comparison to other African nations, "Ugandan males in 1995 were
less likely to have ever had sex., more likely to be married and keep sex
within the marriage, and less likely to have multiple partners." USAID
concludes that "the effect of HIV prevention in Uganda (particularly
partner reduction) during the past decade appears to have had a similar
impact as a potential medical vaccine of 80 percent efficacy..A
comprehensive behavior change-based strategy.may be the most effective
prevention approach."

However, the Ugandan experience is not being promoted elsewhere,
which leads some observers to conclude that ideology may be playing a role.
In fact, as news of the Ugandan success has spread, the defense of condoms has grown more insistent.

Specifically, international AIDS activist have increased their attacks
on the Bush administration, which now seeks to incorporate abstinence
training into the US international AIDS program. Amy Coen, president of
Population Action International, recently stated that "the importance of
condoms cannot be overstated..Yet here in the United States, we are
witnessing a retreat on the part of the government and a wall of silence
descending around condom use..The case for condoms is indisputable." And, according to a column by Marie Cocco in Newsday, "President George W. Bush has begun appointing critics of condoms to a presidential advisory panel on AIDS. They include social conservatives who question the international scientific consensus that condoms are highly effective in AIDS prevention."

This promotion of condoms continues, despite the mounting evidence
that they have failed to stem the spread of the disease. For instance, led
by Nelson Mandela, South Africa has firmly embraced the "safe sex" strategy, and condom use has increased. But South Africa remains the world leader in AIDS infection, with 11.4 percent of its population currently infected.

The international AIDS community appears determined to find a
technological solution to the epidemic, rather than to suggest the types
of behavior-change that have succeeded in Uganda. On Tuesday, the Mercury News of Miami reported that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will spend $28 million to study the potential of birth control diaphragms to combat AIDS in Africa. The Mercury News cautions, however, that "the scientific basis for diaphragms preventing AIDS is more theoretical than clinically proven."

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute

c-fam@c-fam.org