Topic: Science and Faith
The Pope was Right About Condoms The mainstream media denigrated the pope for speaking up about condoms. But they were wrong.by Kevin Roeten
(conservative)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
It seems Pope Benedict XI was exactly right about HIV. In his recent comments on his way to Yaound, Cameroon, he said "the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem".
It's unbelievable when the pope starts to quote science, but it's even more shocking when so many reject plain facts ["AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right"]. The quote "hell hath no fury as a woman scorned" seems representative for the reaction. But this was not only about women, and hell has everything to do with it.
Between 1992 and 2001, condom sales in Cameroon increased from 6 million to 15 million. In that same time period, HIV prevalence tripled from 3% to 9%. An estimated 22 million in Africa have HIV, which is the direct precursor to AIDS. Three quarters of AIDS deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa, as is Cameroon...
The CDC (Center for Disease Control) estimates there were 1.1 million persons with HIV/AIDS in the US in 2006. A CDC historical trend suggests there are at least 40,000 new infections annually in the US.
The rubber of latex condoms has intrinsic voids about 5 microns (0.0002 in). Per Diane Dew Condom 'safe sex' theory full of holes, even intact condoms have naturally occurring defects (tiny thru holes) measuring 5 to 50 microns in diameter50 to 500x the size of the HIV virus (C. Michael Roland/ Polymer Properties Section/ Naval Research Laboratory/ Washington, D.C.).
Even tests of only seminal fluid show only one micro-liter may contain up to 100,000 HIV particles, any one of which could pass through a normal hole in latex without touching the sides (William Gairdner/1995/ Condoms and HIV). Within medical circles, there is wide agreement condoms afford virtually no protection during anal sex.
Even if there were no pores in latex, in-use breakage and slip-off rates are "so high as to make condoms ineffective for protection against HIV"(Biochemist and Molecular Biologist/ Dr. David Collart/ Stone Mountain, Ga.). The Alan Guttmacher Institute published an article in Planned Parenthood Family Planning Perspectives on 5/8920 years ago. It stated condoms have an 11.4-22.3% failure rate for teens. Reported in the British Journal of Medicine(7/11/87) was a failure rate of 26% due to rupture and slippage alone. Teens continually say their Sex Ed classes are not informing them of these facts.
This research backs the pope's teachings on condom use per Dr Edward C. Green. The US funded Demographic Health Surveys have shown "a consistent association between greater availability and use of condoms and higher HIV infection rates."The late Cardinal Alfonso Trujillo said condoms may help spread AIDS though a false sense of security. Condoms can even be worse than just plain ineffective. Dr. Green explained to MercatorNet that condoms "may even exacerbate HIV infection levels due to a phenomenon called risk compensation, or behavioral disinhibition. People take more sexual risks because they feel safer than is actually justified when using condoms."
Martin Sempaa (Ugandan consultant/AIDS prevention) said "why does the nations in Africa with the highest condoms correspond with the highest HIV/AIDS? These include Botswana and South Africa who have the first and highest condoms per male, yet their numbers of HIV/AIDS are also the same."[link edited for length]
Per Sempaa, condoms have not reduced HIV/AIDS anywhere in the worldmore condoms across Africa have resulted in more HIV. Sam Ruteikara (co-chair Uganda's AIDS-Prevention Committee), has realized that most HIV infections in Africa are spread by sex outside of marriage, in particular infidelity and casual sex. He knew the solution was faithful love.
When one asks if there is a way to stop AIDS in its tracks, the answer is absolutely. The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within it proved it was the only sure way of stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS. Any person you ask who's fulfilled this correct moral behavior can verify this.
But on 5/12/09, President Obama's fiscal year 2010 Proposed Budget authorized $50 million in new mandatory condom grants to states (Abstinence Clearinghouse). It was part of the recommendation to Congress to eliminate funding for abstinence education, and instead pour funds into condoms and sex education.
Evidently, some still want their immoral behavior and a cure for HIV too. Hopefully they will come around sooner, than later. If condoms had to be labeled as other harmful items are (i.e., cigarettes), the perfect official warning should be, "Expect death".
The views expressed in this
article are those of Kevin Roeten only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Kevin Roeten is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
The only thing that I find disturbing is our government spending $50M in condoms. Neverthless if the government spent $50M in abstinence education it would be equally disturbing to me.
GOVERNMENTS should stay out of our bedrooms.
Let the true free market establish the condom usage or abstinence. That is up to the individuals, their parents, their churches, their condom manufacturers and public awareness independent organizations.
We should NOT spend a single dime on sex ed, condoms, aids prevention, etc...
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-05-19 18:43:25
Hi Kevin,
I tried to follow your article but I didn't see that it went anywhere. Was the point to imply that condom use increases HIV cases? Was the point to imply that immoral behavior is the cause of HIV?
Do you wonder how many HIV babies were not born because of the condoms? Do you wonder how many abortions were avoided because of the condoms?
This is a number's game. The problem isn't the condoms but the increased sexual activity in a country with a very high percentage of infected adults. The false security provided by condom use and the heightened sexual awareness resulting from aids awareness programs has provided a net negative impact on the spread of aids.
Personally, I'm not interested in how many people in Camaroon die from aids, or plague, or appendicitis. I'm only interested in stopping our government from participating in the issue in Camaroon in any way shape or form.
Here in the "homeland" I support the right for evangelical christians, the condom vendor, the abortion doctor and a Good Humor Ice Cream man to all sell their wares on the same street corner using the same currency. I only oppose the government interfering in any of these businesses in any way.
Actually, Jahfre, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, half of abortions occurred when contraceptives failed, so the argument that "abortions were avoided" because of condoms is a fallacy.
In addition, lumping abortionists in the same category as the Good Humor Ice Cream man is, at best, ridiculous.
That $50 million was for condoms only. I didn't include the other $150 million Obama has thown in for contraceptive-only education.
You seem to forget that any money spent on abstinence education comes back to the people in the form of less money spent at Planned Parenthood for contraceptive use, less money spent on abortions that get routed through Medicare and Medicaid, and additional people born resulting in another source of income tax.
You've got to look at the big picture.
Governments are NOT in our bedrooms. Abstinence education simply informs people the best way to go about having sex. The free market is good, but I have never heard the free market tell someone the moral truth to someone.
We need to spend money where it will give us the largest return. The manufacture and distribution of condoms has had just the opposite effect.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-05-20 05:32:06
You wrote:
"You seem to forget that any money spent on abstinence education comes back to the people in the form of less money spent at Planned Parenthood for contraceptive use, less money spent on abortions that get routed through Medicare and Medicaid, and additional people born resulting in another source of income tax."
Is this nothing more than conjecture on your part, or can you prove your wild claims? For instance, I'd like to know what your source is for inferring that Planned Parenthood uses taxpayer funds, since no other "savings" could rationally be inferred. I'd also like to know what hard evidence you can point to which demonstrates your claim that abstinence education actually reduces Medicaid and Medicare spending. Can you prove this, or are you merely engaging in conjecture? Finally, I'd like to know why you are opposed to people using contraceptives regardless of HIV, since you clearly want to prevent people from using them as much as you possibly can.
It seems as if you got both points of the column. Actually, abortions were increased because of condoms. No, you were right. Condoms is definitely part of the problem. Because of condoms, many feel that they are protected from HIV which is definitely not true.
If you look at it, the only real positive is that current medication for HIV is allowing people with HIV to live longer. There are still 40,000 people in the US per year getting the disease. I know this to be true. My cousin has HIV. They originally told him he would not live past his 30's, but he's 40 now and doing well.
The only problem with Cameroon is that AIDS will eventually spread here, if not stopped there. And we know that federal funds spent on abstinence education is significantly cheaper that contraceptive routes.
The government should only get involved when the populace is directly threatened. A few of those circumstances are drug use, misuse of alcohol, HIV/AIDS, etc...
The government has no business telling people how to live their personal and moral lives. If people knowingly want to spread diseases to each other and both parties agree, so be it.
If someone with hiv/aids infects someone else without warning them beforehand, then they have inflicted harm and if the court system is working, it should make it clear that this is harm and injury and must be compensated or punished or both.
To want the government to be involved in forming people's actions in one certain way [whether condoms or abstinance] in an area of individual choice or two individuals making a common, informed choice, is Statism in its finest form.
Let me state some of the "conjecture" you discuss. You can actually go to www.nrlc.org to find most of this info as well. Some of PP's services are:
1) $588 million for "medical services"
2) $48 million for "sexuality education"
3) $23.8 million for "services to affiliates"
4) $7.3 million for "international family planning programs"
Need I go on? Even when it is specified that funds are not to be used for abortions, that money frees up other funds for abortion performance and advocacy.
Just "Government Grants and Contracts" total $336.7 million for Planned Parenthood. Abstinence Education severely courtails the abortions required--that knowledge should be intrinsicly obvious. A goopd portion of those people who get abortions use Medicare and Medicaid funds for those abortions. That should be patently obvious as well.
You remember when God said, "be fruitful and multiply"? Contraceptives are the very antithesis of following that command. What do you follow?
The government NEVER tells people how to live their personal and moral lives. They can instruct people who will listen the most moral and cost effective way of doing things. After that, it's up to them.
If someone with HIV/AIDS infects someone, it seems like anything the government could do is after-the-fact then. If the government does its job, then it will simply inform people what the likely outcome will be if they continue along a certain path. There's no Statism involved whatsoever.
But notice now, it seems that whatever Obama says should be done.
Not to get grapic, but the decision to allow another human to consentually "invade" the private property of one's own body, is purely a personal decision and has absolutely nothing to do with the government, no matter the result. This is the most private of private matters and is zero business of any government.
When we allow any breakdown of this barrier, we have granted the State the ultimate right over our own bodies, and there can be no greater invasion of privacy.
Any "private" non coercive effort to influence people's decisions is certainly permissable, but ANY State intrusion is blantant invasion of the right to privacy and our dominion over our own bodies.
There can be no "reasonable" amount of action by the State in this area. For that to occur, another human with power must decide the amount of freedom to allow the "general populace" in order to "protect" the general populace. This is a cloudy spectrum that ends in Totalitairianism.
Just so you know, another person living in another (the mom) is a personal decision. That decision was made by the man and woman who decided to have sex. You remember, that's the only way to have babies as far as I know.
The goernment did not force this copulation. It was a mutual consent---for the most part. How or when it was done, has nothing to do with the government.
But once someone is conceived, he/she has all the DNA for exactly the human he will look like. He/she is not the property of the state. but they are now a citizen of the US. They have the right to life as stated in the Declaration. The government has the obligation to provide that right.
There is no blatant state intrusion into the life of that child--at least not yet. However, the current Obama-state brings many clouds upon the horizon. Condoms or abstinence is something the state can provide info on. They cannot force anyone to do anything.
But they have done an awfully good job stressing the former and forgetting the latter.
What do you mean that the only way to have children is by having sex? That is not true anymore. With the use of surrogate mothers and in-vitro fertilization there is no need to have sex to conceive. Which is great for those couples who for one reason or another can't conceive. (maybe a bad uterus).
So there is not need to have sex to have children, unless you consither sex the guy who needs to manipulate himself to provide the semen sample and the woman who needs to spread her legs to the physician for him to extract the egg, and the surrogate mother who also needs to spread her legs to get the foreign egg and semen introduced into her uterus. Maybe the state sex police will fine or jail the surrogate mother for prostitution. (surrogate mothers will rent their uterus for cash)
Bottom line: The government should not spend anything on sex whether abstinence, abortion, condoms, vasectomies or tubal ligations. Nothing. That is a personal matter unless there is rape involved in which case there has been a violation of the rights of the victim.
Nevertheless, the real victims are the children born with HIV. These babies had no choice. But neither did I when my mother and father passed down to me any kind of genetically transfered diseases to me. And to be fair, neither did I have a choice when good gene qualities from both of them were transfered to me as well. I had no control on which sperm arrived first to the egg that conceived me. Is all but a game of chance or a roll of a dice.
Well, since you were wrong the first time, I guess you had to think of something to save face.
You ever hear of masturbation? Yes, to have children, sex is always involved. I never said both parties must get mutual pleasure.
It's already been discussed previously how the government paying for abstinence education actually saves more money than it spends. Good practice. You knew that, right?
It is all a game of chance. But aren't you glad they rolled the dice, had you, and decided not to abort? Think about it...
I was never wrong the first time. I simply stated an opinion that the government should spend NO money in neither sexual or non-sexual propaganda. But they do anyway. You may say that you want to have $10M in your bank account and that is not wrong. Therefore an opinion of what something SHOULD BE is never wrong is just an opinion. So guess what, you opinion is not wrong either. Its just your opinion.
In my opinion, sex should be with two or more people. Masturbation to me is just self-gratification because of not getting enough or for some a preparation to the real sex so that you don't go at it with a loaded gun and have a premature one and thus not pleasing your partner. Therefore, it is my opinion that you don't have to have sex for children to be born.
If the government paying for abstinence ed saves more money that is just your opinion. My opinion is that the government will save even more money by spending on neither abstinence, nor encouragements, nor condoms, nor abortions,...NOTHING.
Yes is all a game of chance. I personally don't like abortions because I feel that the un-born child is being murdered legally. Nevertheless, even though murder is illegal, anybody can shoot you in the back of your head giving you no chance of survival either and still get away with it. And even if he does not get away with it and goes to jail, you are dead anyway, so it does not help you at all. So the law will not prevent that from happening either. Abortions should not be encouraged nor paid for by the government. To make them illegal or not that is a different story with so many interpretations on either side that there is now way of reaching a true solution for now. If they are made illegal, they are going to happen anyway. So I have to admit to you that abortions are one of the toughest ones for me and I would rather stay out of such debate. Call me a chicken!
Yes, you were wrong the 1st time. If you don't have sex of some type, you can't have children.
It seems as though many of your opinions are wrong. There is a right and wrong whether you, yourself, has reached what you call a true solution or not. Abortion is wrong, and a truly honest person would not stay out of the debate.
I think you're honest enough to get back into that debate...
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