Abstinence and AIDS

I just read an article about a controversy at a global AIDS conference. The controversy is about the role of abstinence in AIDS prevention. Why is this such a big problem and controversy? AIDS is primarily a sexually transmitted disease. (I said primarily. There are obviously other means of distribution.) Therefore abstinence is a 100% guaranteed way of blocking the sexual transmission of HIV. What is so hard to understand? US Member of Congress Barbara Lee (D-CA) says this is not science. True. This is common sense.

Don't get me wrong. I fully support education about condoms and programs that encourage sexually active people to use them. This is a means of making sex safer, certainly. Use of condoms also addresses other sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. But, how can you ignore the only approach that is 100% guaranteed to work for all these considerations? That is incredibly irresponsible! Why suppose an either-or approach? Encouraging abstinence must coexist with education about condoms.

Representative Lee also says, "In an age where five million people are newly infected each year and women and girls too often do not have the choice to abstain, an abstinence until marriage program is not only irresponsible, it's really inhumane....Abstaining from sex is oftentimes not a choice, and therefore their only hope in preventing HIV infection is the use of condoms." Let me see if I can understand this logic. Some women do not have the choice to abstain. What does this mean? Rape victims? If they are being raped, do they still have the choice to request condom usage during the act? Anyway, because some women will be victims of hopefully conscientious, condom-toting rapists, or for some other reason are unable to choose whether or not to have sex, we should not even talk about abstinence for the millions of other women (and men, about whom Lee expresses little concern) who can and do make this choice every day.

This is science dicating policy?