adios, mexico city policy

The next time you hear about how much Bush did for the AIDS issue in Africa, keep in mind that there were deeply destructive ideological strings attached to all of those dollars. Charities that supported abortion services or even contraception were explicitly excluded, effectively funneling the money to "faith-based" evangelical Christian charities. Think third world evangelism is just something that Spanish monks tortured Native Americans with in the 16th century?

Via Tom Ricks:

There was one particular problem that brought it home for me. In 2006, a Nigerian lawmaker announced that 55,000 women die in the country each year from unsafe illegal abortions. The evidence was everywhere -- from women that my colleagues and I met to Nigerian films on exactly that topic.

What was the best way to get that statistic down? Some will say abstinence. But sex is not always a choice. It's in those situations where women seek -- or are forced by their partners to seek -- unsafe abortions. Some counseling and a sterile doctor's office would go a long way.

FDL has more:

Acknowledging that women are increasingly at the center of the pandemic, Dybul [Bush's Africa AIDS czar] claimed that the Administration's ideologically driven program that focuses on promoting abstinence until marriage and faithfulness in marriage "might be the best way to encourage men to treat women better."

Ah yes, the famed shut up, put out and make me a sandwich method of "faithfulness". There was a special de-emphases on the use of condoms.

Good riddance, you fundamentalist clowns. Try to thump your Bibles in a way that doesn't destroy lives. That could be asking too much, I know.