This topic has been on my mind for a while and I’ve avoided broaching it on this blog, but the time has come. I’m going to talk about my FEELINGS and THOUGHTS about the Church’s teachings on contraception and how it specifically relates to HIV and AIDS.
First up, anyone who’s read any of my posts will know I’m no theologian nor do I have a deep knowledge of many teachings of the Catholic Church. But as far as I can see, that’s typical of a lot of Catholics out there – and it doesn’t make us inferior God’s children…
So, the crux of my problem is how can our Church justify its stand on contraception – and I’m specifically referring to condoms here – when 100 million people are infected with HIV throughout the world? The majority of these are NOT homosexual males suffering from “gay cancer”, and the majority of these are NOT in the developed world.
Nearly 40 million people are living with HIV worldwide – 25 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.
It’s not that I’m promoting the use of condoms as the only solution in preventing the spread of this devastating disease. That would be ignorant and overly simplistic. The fight against the spread of HIV has to be fought on a huge number of fronts – advocacy and education (in both developing and developed countries) is the first and most vital step.
The promotion of abstinence and monogomy are also vital, but it is naive to think condoms don’t help and should be ignored.
I cannot, in all good conscience and faith in God, justify my Church’s teaching on contraception in the light of the suffering of so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we’re talking about people who barely have enough food to eat, clean water to drink, or access to medication, people who are reduced – through poverty they did not choose – to living in conditions no human being should, who is the Vatican to say their only path to heaven involves a denial of access to, in many cases, life-saving prevention?
Hi Capitan,
A good honest post on a very contentious, and misunderstood, issue – I like that!
I have a reasonable working knowledge of this issue, so I felt that it was appropriate to respond.
But I’m not going to try and unwrap this puppy in one monster of a post, so I’ll post dribs and drabs in different posts as things progress.
I will be approaching this issue from a practical, researched based perspective rather than a strictly moral standpoint.
I will be doing this because science and natural law fully support the Churches stance on this contentious issue, but sadly the science is being ignored, suppressed or attacked by lobby groups and others who have become recipients of serious financial gain by promoting an ideology that is counter to the Church on this issue.
Firstly, let me start by clarifying an important point.
Condoms are not a life-saving preventative medicine.
They are a contraceptive device that MAY prevent the transmission of HIV if they are used 100% correctly, do not have any inherent flaws and do not break during their usage.
Their true purpose is actually risk reduction, and they are not a medicine.
Even if they are used 100% correctly, the user is still exposed to risk.
A UNAIDS report in 2003 showed that condoms fail to prevent against HIV 10% of the time, even when used correctly.
This failure rate is supported by organisations like the WHO, and others and some studies have even shown this failure rate to be higher than 10%.
AIDS is a fatal disease that has no cure, and when you consider that, all of a sudden the 10% failure rate becomes rather unacceptable for a device that is supposed to provide the answer to the HIV crisis in Africa.
But there are other issues with effectiveness too.
Firstly we know that condom failure rates dramatically increase over time.
According to the study; “Contraception: Short-term vs. long-term failure rates”
By Dr J. A. Ross – condoms have a ten year failure rate of 52%.
This means that if ten couples began using condoms today, in ten years time at more than 5 of those couples would have experienced at least one condom failure.
When you are talking about a fatal disease, such research is not supportive of condoms in the fight against AIDS.
Condoms don’t exist in a vacuum; there are social and moral issues that surround the promotion and use of condoms that are often ignored by condom promoting agencies.
So far we have no good evidence that condoms will be effective in reversing population wide epidemics like those in Africa.
In fact, the evidence suggests that condom promotion is actually making the situation worse.
Let me finish this little (ha!) post with a quote from a news story about the recent AIDS conference in Toronto Canada – because I think this sums up the reality of the ideological forces at play in this debate.
“The general flavour of the conference, however, was made abundantly clear during Gates’ opening remarks, where the thousands of delegates violently booed one of the rare mentions of abstinence and sexual fidelity as possible solutions to AIDS, and enthusiastically cheered for latex, pharmaceuticals, and increasing acceptance of prostitution and hard drug use.
In his opening remarks to the conference Gates briefly mentioned the controversial ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms) program, the program of HIV/Aids prevention that is pushed internationally by the Bush Administration, and which has been employed with unprecedented success by the Ugandan government. “This approach,” said Gates, “has saved many lives, and we should expand it.”
The mere mention of the program, however, which focuses primarily on abstinence and faithfulness as the surest means of prevention, with condom-use as a distant last resort, provoked unanimous and energetic boos from the thousands of attendees.”
I think that’s all from me for now!
As the discussion progresses I’d be happy to talk about other important research around this issue, and why condoms pose extra risks to women.
Life saving prevention? Condoms have been widely available in these HIV stricken countries for many years and the HIV infection has not decreased, unlke Uganda, whose rate dropped from 18% to 6% after the abstinence and fidelity programme was introduced. Can you honestly say you would have sex with someone infected with HIV provided a condom was used? I know I wouldn’t. All a condom does is give the user a false sense of security and promotes promiscuity because they think they’re protected. It’s not just sex that contributess to the high HIV infectinon rate either, the appalling health conditions, including re-use of needles, contributes greatly.
You also seem to be forgetting Gods plan for married love and how that works. Condoms and contraception were never part of that plan and God isn’t going to change it just because society has turned against Him and decided promiscuity is better than chastity. I’m sure there are other people who can explain this so much better than me, that is my general take on it.
Hi Raymond,
Uganda is often misused in arguments on this topic, and I’m not surprised you have quoted it.
It is incorrect, by way of omission, to say Uganda’s “rate dropped from 18% to 6% after the abstinence and fidelity programme was introduced”.
Uganda’s somewhat successful fight against the spread of HIV was long, multi-pronged and involved condom distribution and promotion. You can read about how the country did it in a book called ‘Open Secret: People Facing Up to HIV and AIDS in Uganda’.
If you were to put that country’s success down to one thing, it would be their efforts to reduce the stigma the surrounds HIV and AIDS in so many countries.
Raymond,
You make a very valid point about dirty needles and HIV in Africa.
We know that the African medical sector is seriously under-funded, under-resourced and that health and safety practises are almost non-existent.
It is common for medical equipment and disposables to be reused because of the fact that they just can’t get the new resources they need.
The WHO claims 50% of syringes in SSA re-used, and other organisations have called this estimate very conservative when one considers the huge black market trade in medical equipment (new and used) that exists in Africa.
It is common to hear talk of unsafe heterosexual sex as being the prime cause of AIDS transmission in Africa, yet there is a reasonable body of research which suggests that this assertion is flawed.
The study: “Mounting Anomalies in the Epidemiology of HIV in Africa: Cry the Beloved Paradigm.” That appeared in the International Journal of STD & AIDS, 2003, 14:144-14
Showed that “Levels of sexual activity reported in a dozen general population surveys in Africa are comparable to those reported elsewhere, especially in North America and Europe”
March 2003 issue of peer-reviewed journal, the International Journal of STD & AIDS examined all the evidence on African AIDS transmission available through 1988, before what they call the “premature closure of the debate.”
In all, they reviewed 22 separate studies. What they found is startling:
- Injections were more highly associated with HIV than sex
- Most of those infected with HIV were in a long-term monogamous relationship. “The consistency of the evidence suggests a large majority of HIV infections in non-promiscuous adults.”
- Those of higher socioeconomic status have higher rates of HIV than those of lower status – this, they say, points towards healthcare as an issue in HIV transmission.
- Clinic attendance was associated with HIV
- Infants were medically infected with HIV. “High rates of HIV infections in children that could not reasonably be attributed to vertical [mother-to-child] transmission”
When you examine the needle issue more closely, you realise that the West has bloody hands over this issue.
1994-2000, USAID provided 41,967,200 units of the contraceptive chemical Depo-Provera into the developing world – that’s over $40 million worth.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was responsible for 12 million doses in 1992 and 20 million doses in 1994 alone.
Although exact numbers are hard to come by we know that the UNFPA spends more money on its African programs than any other part of the world.
We also know that USAID sends more units of Depo-Provera to Africa, to countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania and Nigeria, than to any other part of the world.
Here’s the interesting part; Depo-Provera Comes with it’s own “complete injection kit for convenience” (manufacturers words).
Depo-Provera kits are sold over-the-counter at a nominal price from dilapidated “pharmacies” for private use in completely unsupervised settings in Africa and other developing nations – which is illegal in the US.
It is estimated that “100 million Depo-Provera syringes and needles have been put into circulation in Africa since the early nineties.”
Now here is the really incriminating bit…
In 2003 USAID announced changes to their Depo-Provera kits:
1. They would now feature an “Auto-disable syringe” so that the syringes could only be used once
2. They would now feature a proprietary needle size, so that the needles could not be used on other syringes
Why would they take these steps unless they realised that their products were being used again and again and again?!
There is no other reason to make such changes, because the actual syringes are worth almost nothing they don’t make the manufacturer’s hardly any money.
And because you have to keep taking Depo-Provera, (which comes with a syringe each dose) there is no extra money for them in making these changes – it’s not like you can buy the Depo-Provera at a cheaper rate and then re-use the needles to save money!
Not only that, but Depo-Provera has been shown to increase a woman’s risk of contracting HIV.
A 1996 study conducted by researchers at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Centre in New York, and supported by the World Health Organization “found that the presence of progesterone likely thins the vaginal wall and thus makes it far more vulnerable to infection by STDs or HIV during intercourse.”
What about the health care conditions? Do you not take those into consideration? other countries with similar rates of sexual activity do not have near the same HIV rates. Isn’t one of the major contributors to the spread of HIV the repeated use of the same needle and portable abortion machines? US Aid had to change their Depo kits to ensure the needle wasn’t being reused, there was no financial gain in this and the other kit was quite adequate. There must be some other reason like the needles were being used again and again regardless of HIV infection. How is condom going to help that?
What about the health care conditions? Do you not take those into consideration? other countries with similar rates of sexual activity do not have near the same HIV rates. Isn’t one of the major contributors to the spread of HIV the repeated use of the same needle and portable abortion machines? US Aid had to change their Depo kits, there was no financial gain in this and the other kit was quite adequate. There must be some other reason like the needles were being used again and again regardless of HIV infection. How is a condom going to help that?
Captain,
In #2 you suggest that Uganda’s success had a lot to do with condom promotion and reducing the stigma around HIV.
This is not actually borne out by the actual facts of what is happening in Africa.
Ugnada’s ABC program promoted Abstinence and Be Faithful as the best option against AIDS – Condoms were, and still are, considered a last resort option for high risk groups who won’t follow the first two (such as sex-workers, etc).
In fact, statements from Uganda’s leaders show that condoms are not openly accepted as an important part of their strategy…
From a 2004 news item:
“She [the Ugandan First Lady] told the teens to ignore those who push condoms noting that companies which promote such products are after money.”
From a 2006 news item:
“Be careful about being encouraged to use condoms, those are selling gimmicks… Condoms have quite a significant failure rate, they are not completely effective. Let nobody tell you young people about condoms and AIDS. Don’t be victims of marketing.” – Uganda’s health minister, Dr. Stephen Malinga
Also condoms were not initially part of the Uganda’s program, they were introduced AFTER the HIV rates had begun to dramatically decrease.
Not surprisingly, many Western organisations who have financial interests in condom promotions went out of their way to try and discredit Uganda’s success with abstinence.
Like anyone, they don’t like being wrong, so many books and papers were written that falsely tried to discredit Uganda’s success without condoms – but they are nothing more than shallow attacks on a successful program that didn’t embrace condom ideology.
If condoms are successful, then why do the nations with the highest condom usage rates also have the highest HIV rates?
Why have no other countries been able to emulate Uganda’s success, if condoms were the real answer there and are so beneficial in this battle?!
We can also look to the Philippines as another example in this debate – they have one of the lowest condom usage rates in the world according to the UN, and they also have an HIV rate that is one of the lowest.
The HIV infection rate in Philippines is around 6 times less than that of the US, which has huge money and health infrastructure to deal with this issue.
The Philippines is a Catholic country that has a culture of chastity, in fact they don’t even have official sex education in schools – so much for that theory too!
Capitan – I encourage you to read experts like Dr Edward Green (story below) on this issue, and not just materials from pro-condom advocates.
AIDS Specialist and Former Condom Advocate Speaks on Switch to Abstinence
By Gudrun Schultz
LAKE FOREST, Calif., December 8, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A senior U. S. research scientist who once advocated the use of condoms to slow the spread of HIV now promotes abstinence and fidelity as far more effective weapons against the disease.
Edward Green, with the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, became convinced of the effectiveness of abstinence and faithfulness after witnessing the impact of Uganda’s ABC program on the country’s infection rates. The ABC method, which stands for Abstain, Be faithful, or use a Condom, is credited with dramatically reducing the rate of HIV infection in Uganda since it was first implemented in 1986.
Encouraging abstinence and faithfulness has had the most impact, according to Green.
“Advocates of the ABCs often use the term to mean a primary emphasis on abstinence/delay of sexual debut and faithfulness/partner reduction, with condom use being a secondary but necessary strategy for those who do not or cannot practice abstinence or fidelity,” Green stated at a recent conference on HIV/AIDS held at the Saddleback Church in California. “Most critically, ‘B’ behaviors (fidelity and reduction in the number of sexual partners) increased dramatically.”
Appearing before the African subcommittee of the U.S. Senate on May 19, 2003, Green stated: “Infection rates [in Uganda] have declined from 21% to 6 % since 1991. Many of us in the AIDS and public health communities didn’t believe that abstinence and faithfulness were realistic goals. It now seems we were wrong.”
(http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2003/GreenTestimony03051…)
Green was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and Aids in 2003.
“Condom adoption is sometimes assumed to be a simpler behavior change to adopt than that of abstinence or faithfulness,” Green said. “Yet condom use, especially correct and consistent condom use, is also a difficult and demanding behavior change. Part of the proof of this observation is the disappointing low levels of consistent condom use after more than 20 years of condom promotion in the developing world.”
Advocates of condom use as an AIDS preventative in third world countries have reacted poorly to evidence of the success rate achieved by the ABC method.
LifeSiteNews reported in July 2004 on pro-condom activists at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, among them Canada’s Stephen Lewis, who attacked U.S. supporters of the program as “foolhardy” and “destructive.”
Let me go back a few steps and examine the underlying ideology behind the promotion of condoms, because it is based on several seriously flawed philosophies.
People who promote condoms either believe that sexual abstinence shouldn’t be practised, or that it is unrealistic to expect people to practise it.
Now if you believe that sexual abstinence is unrealistic, you are saying that human beings are nothing more than mere animals that cannot control themselves or make the best choices in regards to themselves and others.
This ideology completely destroys human dignity by reducing us to the level of mindless beasts that cannot use their animalistic urges for the greater good.
They also often believe that condoms are 100% effective in prevent HIV, which is simply not true as we have already discussed.
Is it ethical to promote condoms, when at least 10% of the time the users will experience a failure that could very well give them the disease?
Have we reduced ourselves to Utilitarian thinking now – where we take the good that is a human person and reduce it to an object and then weigh up the pros and cons of carrying out an action. (Once again man is robbed of his true dignity, because now it’s acceptable to expose some people to death so that others won’t be exposed to death).
People who promote condoms also do not consider the physiological implications of interfering with biological processes that are clearly defined by Mother Nature.
Here is a link to an article that examines the research showing that denying seamen to the female reproductive tract is actually seriously detrimental to the physical health of females.
Yet, condoms do exactly this – they are designed to defeat a naturally intended biological process.
Is it ethical to promote condoms as a risk reduction method when science shows us that they expose a woman to increase risk of cancers and other serious conditions?
Is it morally acceptable to promote a method that carries deadly risk over a method that is a 100% effective form of protection that carries no risk at all?
Like I said earlier, condoms do not exist in a vacuum, they are not philosophically and morally neutral items – they are part and parcel of a much bigger ideology and error about the human person and human sexuality.
This is borne out by the research which shows us that when condoms are promoted, sexual diseases like AIDS actually increase in a population.
We also know from research that condom users are more likely to engage in risky behaviours that increase the risk of HIV transmission.
When condoms are promoted to people, they begin to believe the lie that sexuality can be separated from responsibility and love and that it can be reduced to a mere physical and animalistic act without any consequences.
But this simply isn’t true.
As more people believe that condoms are the magic silver bullet, the more they act out on such a belief and the greater the problem of HIV becomes.
Even groups that promote condoms have acknowledged this fact at some point or other, let me quote from an International Planned Parenthood Federation Bulletin:
“the risk of contracting AIDS during so called protected sex approaches 100 percent as the number of episodes of sexual intercourse increases” – IPPF Medical Bulletin 31
I have a close friend who is currently in Uganda as a missionary, and she emailed me last week to give me an update about the ABC program there.
This is what she had to say, from personal experience of being there…
“…when people are given the option of using condoms – whether it’s the first or last thing on the list – they ignore all the other options and choose that because it’s easier.”
I asked the Ugandans we work with about the program and they said people who try ABC invariably end up using condoms regularly, but the Catholic Church promotes abstinence and faithfulness while warning against condom use, and that is successfully decreasing the number of those who have AIDS [in Uganda].”
Another close friend of mine who is currently overseas was talking to a mutual friend of ours who is a priest working in Africa, and from his experience, people are seeking out the Catholic Church because faithful Catholics who are following the Catholic Church on this issue are not plagued with the same HIV problems as other populations in Africa are.
Even Africans themselves are not comfortable with the ideologies that are being forced about their countries by the Western condom pushers.
From a 2005 news story:
“African leaders are growing resentful that U.S. dollars are contingent upon acceptance,” of condoms.”
From a 2004 news item:
“She [the Ugandan First Lady] told the teens to ignore those who push condoms noting that companies which promote such products are after money.”
From a 2006 news item:
“Be careful about being encouraged to use condoms, those are selling gimmicks… Condoms have quite a significant failure rate, they are not completely effective. Let nobody tell you young people about condoms and AIDS. Don’t be victims of marketing.” – Uganda’s health minister, Dr. Stephen Malinga
From news item in 2006:
“The Anglican Archbishop and Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, has accused such organizations [those who promote condoms] and those funded through the United Nations of a kind of latter day imperialism in trying to impose western mores of sexual licentiousness on Africans.
Increasingly at international meetings of Christian organizations, both Catholic and Protestant, the African and Asian representatives are the more socially and theologically “conservative” and are standing up against incursions of foreign attitudes into their own cultures.”
Sorry folks, I’ll try that link again!
Semen and Health
Sorry people, let’s try adding that link again!
The one that mentioned in my last post about the research showing the link between condoms and cancers in women:
http://www.fli.org.nz/dox/BM/HIV%20&%20AIDS%20-%20Semen%20and%20Health.pdf
Captain,
What I don’t understand is why this is an issue for the Church? CARITAS still provides aid to these countries doesn’t it? It’s not like the Church is witholding aid from the situation?
Also, I have heard the Uganda statistics and, as I have posted before, I always look at any statistics with a metric tonne of salt, but if Uganda is the only African country to have reduced the rate of infection, can’t something be done to look at what they did and mimic it in the other African countries?
The frustrating thing from my point of view is that the only 100% effective way of preventing sexually transmitted HIV is abstinence, right? I mean, every alternative is less than 100%. So shouldn’t we – on those numbers alone – be focusing on that as being the solution and everything else being secondary, or even tertiary as in the ABC concept? Isn’t any alternative simply pushing a sub-optimal option?
Thank you BTM, I knew someone had lots of good answers!
James,
You are right about condoms being the sub-standard answer to this issue.
In one area of Uganda alone, over a seven year period of abstinence education the number of sexually active 13 to 16 year olds dropped over 65% to less than 5%.
IN JUST SEVEN YEARS!!!
Yet the FPA, the NZ AIDS Foundation (should be called the NZ Gay Foundation because of all the militant gay propaganda they’re involved with) and co still try to fool the unwashed masses into believing that condoms have something to offer.
There is no doubt that this is because condom ideology now pays a very good wage.
Just two weeks ago it was announced that the NZ AIDS Foundation will be receiving the lion’s share of the millions of dollars that our government is spending on this issue.
Condom distribution has become a multi-billion dollar industry and you’d be mad to think that the companies involved want to surrender such huge financial gain for the sake of abstinence, a practise that can’t be sold or bought!
I have spoken face to face with representatives of these organisations in media appearances, and many of them aren’t even aware of basic healthcare facts about sexual disease and condoms – they simply don’t seem to want to know.
Yet millions of taxpayer money is being wasted on these organisations and their outdated ideologies based on the failed sexual revolution (which was just plain revolting!)
BTM, I don’t think you understood my point – I am advocating the teaching of ABC. I think it’s incredibly important that it is used; but the C cannot and must not be left off the end.
In #7, Green’s not saying condoms don’t work – he’s summed my point up quite nicely actually: “with condom use being a secondary but necessary strategy for those who do not or cannot practice abstinence or fidelity”. My point is that our Church won’t even accept this, will it?
In #8, you say “People who promote condoms either believe that sexual abstinence shouldn’t be practised, or that it is unrealistic to expect people to practise it.” You’re wrong on that one. You’re talking about people who promote condom use as the single most important factor in the fight against the spread of HIV. Those people are few and far between – and ignorant and naive, to come to that.
“They also often believe that condoms are 100% effective in prevent HIV, which is simply not true as we have already discussed.” Again, not true. No one with any knowledge on this subject actually believes that.
BTM, you talk about how denial of semen increases a woman’s risk of cancer. But what about someone who has HIV – contracted through, for example, a blood transfusion – and is married? Is he expected to do without sex for his entire married life? If so, wouldn’t his wife be at risk of contracting cancer, as she is denied the benefits of his semen? And in the study you linked to, a doctor in the 1970s studied 153 women. 153! 153!! That’s ridiculous and indicative of nothing.
As much as you are trying to cook up a conspiracy theory about everyone who promotes condoms doing it out of ignorance or greed (and, by the way, quoting the Ugandan First Lady to support this point is not too wise), I couldn’t disagree with you more.
You’re completely ignoring the fact – as is your friend in Uganda – that many women throughout Africa have no choice but to sell their bodies for sex, to put food on the table. Actually, not on the table, more likely on the mud ground.
Or that young women have no rights or knowledge to ask/demand men don’t sleep around on them.
It is head-in-the-sand stuff to deny the effectiveness of condoms AS PART of a wide-ranging strategy to help reduce the spread of HIV.
Okay Capitan,
I need to break your post down and reply to each point in bits, because you’ve managed to pack a lot in!
1. “but the C cannot and must not be left off the end.”
Why must it be included?
Once again, this comes back to your philosophy about human sexuality, and to the point that condoms do not exist in a vacuum.
If you promote condoms, you are promoting the philosophy that it is morally acceptable, and consequence-free, to separate human sexuality from true responsibility – but this is garbage ideology from the sexual revolution.
The AIDS pandemic is a modern and completely preventable and controllable pandemic that mankind has created for themselves – the simple fact is this…
If people stopped engaging in risky sex (sex with more than one person in their lifetime) then the only way to contract AIDS would be through vertical transmission or dirty needles and tainted blood products.
AIDS would be wiped out within a couple of generations.
Instead of this, we have been suckered into the belief that mankind must have sex at all costs and that there is something abnormal or impossible with abstaining or committing to a husband or wife for life.
Then there is the glaring issue of what happens when you promote condoms – research shows us that where condoms are promoted, the people engage in more promiscuous and unsafe behaviours that actually make the problem worse, because they believe that condoms are answer.
And why wouldn’t you when some westerner is telling you that you can have sex as long as you wear a condom and everything will be okay?!!!
All people hear in that message is “sex with condom = no problems”.
2. “In #8, you say “People who promote condoms either believe that sexual abstinence shouldn’t be practised, or that it is unrealistic to expect people to practise it.” You’re wrong on that one. You’re talking about people who promote condom use as the single most important factor in the fight against the spread of HIV. Those people are few and far between – and ignorant and naive, to come to that.”
“They also often believe that condoms are 100% effective in prevent HIV, which is simply not true as we have already discussed.” Again, not true. No one with any knowledge on this subject actually believes that.”
Actually Capitan, I deal with people who hold this very view on a daily basis, and they aren’t as “few and far between” as you believe.
I have been in media debates with Family Planning Association workers who teach people this nonsense – it is not a minor issue, it’s happening in our classrooms on a daily basis, and our government is spending millions to fund organisations which tell people that condoms are THE solution to AID prevention.
Let me quote you from the FPA – government funded website Hubba.co.nz:
“condoms are the most effective protection against most STIs, including HIV/AIDs.”
Nrrrggghhh – totally wrong answer!
Let me quote you from the Director of the NZ AIDS Foundation (which receives the bulk on NZ taxpayer funds to fight AIDS)…
“the [condom] efficacy rate is close to 100% [in regards to AIDS]”
These false ideas are not fringe ideas – they are mainstream!
3. “Is he [a married man] expected to do without sex for his entire married life?”
What will happen to this man if he doesn’t have sex with his wife?
Will he die?
Will he explode?
There is no medical or moral requirement for a husband and wife to have sex.
In fact; if I contracted HIV, it would be completely selfish and totally unloving of me to place my wife at risk of death just so we could have sex.
This assumption that people need to have sex is based on outdated sexual revolution ideologies that were based on bad science and social activism.
4. “If so, wouldn’t his wife be at risk of contracting cancer, as she is denied the benefits of his semen?”
The point that needs to be raised here Capitan is immediate and remote risk of both activities.
There is serious, immediate and very real risk that a man having sex with his wife while using a condom (and HIV positive) will actually give the disease to his wife through method or user failure of that condom.
There is scientific research which suggests that there is a remote increased risk of breast cancer for the female if she is denied seamen during sexual intercourse.
Immediate risk always outranks remote risk in this situation.
5. “And in the study you linked to, a doctor in the 1970s studied 153 women. 153! 153!! That’s ridiculous and indicative of nothing.”
Capitan, the article I linked to actually refers to several different studies and several different researchers and research focuses.
The point that the article is making is that there is a good scientific case to be made for further investigation into the fact that the biological act of sexual intercourse, when not allowed to be carried out as nature intended, pose serious physiological risks.
We actually know very little about the human body, and armed with such paltry knowledge we are engaging in all sorts of disruptions to natural law with a complete arrogance to what the actual outcome will be.
Just 60 or 70 years ago doctors were telling patients that smoking helped to cure anxiety, and just 30 years ago we were telling people “don’t smoke, but if you do then always use a filter” (sounds familiar doesn’t it?!)
Well, you’d be a stupid doctor to make either of those assertions today – thanks to advances in our knowledge about smoking and its effects on the body.
Yet, when it comes to contraception we have no idea about what we are doing yet people are told on a daily basis that there is no problem with carrying on regardless.
Whatever your moral leanings; that’s called foolhardy – there is no informed consent in a process when we just don’t know about all the facts!
Also, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a study of only 153 people – as long as the methodology is sound.
Saying that it’s “ridiculous and indicative of nothing” is actually more hopeful than knowledgeable on your part.
6. “As much as you are trying to cook up a conspiracy theory about everyone who promotes condoms doing it out of ignorance or greed (and, by the way, quoting the Ugandan First Lady to support this point is not too wise), I couldn’t disagree with you more.”
Firstly, what’s wrong with the Ugandan first lady?
Is it that she is too Christian?
Maybe she’s too outspoken against condom ideology?
Or maybe it’s something else?
Either way, it is a serious and foolish fallacy of logic to dismiss a person’s arguments based on how you feel about them – that particular fallacy is called “label and dismiss” where you attack the attack the character of the man and not the argument, and then somehow think that you have actually disproved their argument in some way.
Okay Capitan – time for some facts about condoms and money.
A review of the evidence published in the May 11, 2002, issue of The Lancet found that, depending on the country, the expense of using condoms to prevent just one case of HIV/AIDS in Africa ranged from $11 to more than $2,000.
Many experts are suggesting that by 2015 sub-Saharan Africans will “need” 2.3 billion condoms a year (up from 1.1 billion a year in 2000).
We also know that since 1989, at least 4 billion condoms have been shipped to sub-Saharan African nations
Now you do the math on that one and then try and tell me that condoms are about money!!!
Let me quote Dr Green, whom you suggest earlier you are a fan of…
“Many people are connected to this industry, and they stand to lose billions if less money goes to condoms.”
7. “You’re completely ignoring the fact – as is your friend in Uganda – that many women throughout Africa have no choice but to sell their bodies for sex, to put food on the table.
Or that young women have no rights or knowledge to ask/demand men don’t sleep around on them.”
Two issues here Capitan…
a) Women being uneducated or without empowerment…
In those countries where women enjoy the highest levels of education and financial independence and the population is the most urbanized and westernized, the rates of HIV/AIDS are also highest.
The UNFPA, one of the world’s most energetic suppliers of condoms in Africa, reports that Botswana has the highest AIDS rate in the world: 40%. Botswanan women have the highest level of education in Africa and the Botswanan feminist movement is the most advanced in Africa.
Let me quote you from an article about Martin Sempa – a Ugandan anti-AIDS campaigner who has been working in this field for over 16 years – and the recent AIDS conference in Toronto…
“Gates reiterated the conference’s mantra that abstinence has not worked since, he says, in many cases, African women have little say in sexual relations. Gates’ wife, Melinda, told delegates, “You have to put the power in the hands of women — that is going to be the way to change this epidemic.”
Canada’s guru of the left, Stephen Lewis, told delegates that African men can never be expected to learn self-control.
Lewis, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy on AIDS in Africa, said, “To change the sexual behaviour of men is a question of generations. Women are dying now.”
Martin Sempa, a leading AIDS activist in Uganda, responded to Lewis’ statement with outrage. He said that such statements on the animalistic character of African men are “bigoted, colonialist and imperialist,” and will do nothing to help African women, families or AIDS victims.
He said Lewis’ feminist doctrines are not going to help, “African women need the feminist movement like a zebra needs a bicycle,” he said.
Sempa condemned Lewis’ “outrageous” attack on African men. “The reason we have four million new (AIDS) infections every year is that the internationalist AIDS groups have ruled out African men as animals with no self-control.”
“This is an offence to all men who love their wives and their families and are trying to raise their daughters and are working to provide stability in the midst of great difficulty.”
Sempa said Lewis is speaking without understanding the cultural and religious context of Africans. In fact, many African countries are heavily Christian and have a deeply traditional culture that values marriage and the family. If this essential value system were revived, he said, AIDS and not the African people, would die out.
Statistics from Senegal and Uganda show that women are in fact socially and politically empowered. Sempa said that the myth of rape and African women’s helpless victim status is one created by what he calls the international AIDS industry.
“Where are they getting this?” he said. “They talk as if African women are just waiting around at the airport to be raped. It’s the feminist doctrine. Women are all victims and men are evil.”
“What Lewis and Gates need to give the Africans is not microbicides, not condoms and not feminism. It is what they themselves have enjoyed: a happy, stable, long-term marriage and the hope it brings,” Sempa added.
Sempa said, “Money and empowerment alone is not the solution. We see poor women, in Uganda, Senegal, Rwanda, who have less HIV, but the decisive factor is not money, but faith and morality.”
b) Abuse of females…
Condoms are not going to empower women against abuse – in fact they simply make the problem worse!
Think about it…
Condoms tell men that they can keep doing what they are doing, and now they can be “safe” about it!!!
They promote to woman the idea that men shouldn’t have to be accountable for their immoral actions – as long as they wear a condom.
I don’t see any advances for women in promoting condoms.
In regards to females having to sleep with men to get food – well, that’s a serious abuse that needs to be stopped, not made “less risky” with a condom.
The real root cause of that issue can be addressed at the financial level – if women had the appropriate welfare support they need then they wouldn’t need to sleep with men to get food.
Yet instead of this, we are supposed to actually support and allow this abuse to carry on by providing condoms?!!!
That ain’t love and it ain’t respect for the dignity for the human person – it’s inhumane.
8. “It is head-in-the-sand stuff to deny the effectiveness of condoms AS PART of a wide-ranging strategy to help reduce the spread of HIV.”
How is it head in the sand stuff to suggest that condoms are not effective, when there is no GOOD evidence that condoms can actually do anything other than make the situation worse?!!!!
How is it head in the sand stuff when the most full-proof and 100% effective method is to actually avoid the unnecessary activity that leads to the disease?
Think about it – the most irresponsible people (the promiscuous, etc) are given the riskiest methodology (condoms) and told that that it will help them!
We don’t take such an insane attitude with any other health issue.
Imagine if we tried to tackle NZ’s obesity problems in this manner?
We could have a program called EEP:
Eat right
Exercise often
And Pacemakers for all the people can’t do either of the above (so that their risk of dieing from a heart attack is reduced).
The very people who most need the first two E’s would be first in line to opt for the Pacemaker option.
We need to stop underestimating the human person’s potential to transcend dangerous behaviour.
We need to stop applying band aids to gapping wounds.
We need to arm people with all of the facts about condom failures.
We need to embrace truth and not ideology about human sexuality.
And we need to stop trying to make gravely immoral and abusive activities (like prostitution, etc) less riskier and start trying to do all that we can to stop the abuse from happening.
Until we do it’ll be status quo with AIDS baby!
Interesting take on the argument BTm , particularly when you quote a bunch of African men who tell us how empowered African women are.
Re Ugandan First Lady, as a huge proponent of the US-funded abstinence-only programmes she’s not unbaised, nor are her concerns based solely on the welfare of her people. And that’s not labelling and dismissing, that’s just checking evaluating the credibility of a source – vital in any discussion.
Having worked on the ground in Africa, speaking to people living with HIV, to community health workers, women lacking power and income I stand by my statement that it’s head-in-the-sand stuff for our Church to advocate for denying these people what they need.
James, in response to #11, this is an issue for the Church because AIDS poses the very real and immediate danger of undoing all the development progress that’s been made in developing countries.
The fantastic aid and work CARITAS carries out is going to be for nothing if AIDS continues to ravage the way it is.
As you’ll see from what I’ve said since your post, I agree with you about ABC. But it MUST be AB and C, not just AB.
Sounds like you are the one with your head in the sand Captain. You appear to be ignoring all the stats and scientific evidence provided AGAINST condoms and all the evidence FOR abstinence programmes. How many billion condoms have been supplied? Has the HIV infection rate decreased? That should be fairly indicitive of the efficiency, or lack thereof, of condoms.
Raymond,
BTM has posted NOTHING that says condoms don’t reduce the risk of spreading HIV during sexual intercourse. They do. Agenda-driven articles and selective statistics are smokescreens that seek to obfuscate that fact.
For you to simplify this issue down to the number of condoms distributed versus the rate at which HIV is spreading highlights exactly what I think is wrong with our Church and young Catholics today.
Children are dying and being orphaned at a horrific rate – they are your brothers and sisters in Christ and you feel that moralising to the point of inaction is an acceptable response?
I don’t have the time nor access to obscure resourcres that BTM does, so I can’t respond in detail to every point he makes – though I take vehement exception to a lot of his points.
All I would say to anyone on this is read about and research both sides to the argument. It’s easier for me to have my opinion because of my hands-on experience. But for many, particularly in the Western world, it’s easier to come up with reasons NOT to do something, NOT to take a difficult stand.
And, believe it or not, it IS difficult for me to take this stand – disagreeing with a Church teaching is not something I do lightly. But given what I’ve seen, and the reality of the situation “over there” – and the question “what would Jesus do?” that continues to rage in my head – I can’t, in all good conscience, agree with our Church, or you, on this subject.
Why do you think you’re a better authority than the Church and teachings of Christ? Surely He can’t be wrong.
Sure condoms may offer some protection, but it’s like saying “I’ll just give the alcholic a small drink, he’s going to drink anyway”. Isn’t the obvious solution to change the behaviour and not drink? As is the same with this issue, change the behaviour and AIDS will be gone much more quickly.
Capitan,
I’m a bit confused by what you are actually saying here.
1. What you have written suggest to me that the only reason you don’t consider the Ugandan First Lady’s comments to be valid are because:
a) She doesn’t support condom ideologies
b) She supports abstinence education programs (which have been shown to be much more effective than condom based programmes)
I still can’t see how that dismisses what she has to say on this issue.
And it appears that the only reason you aren’t interested in what she has to say on this issue is because she doesn’t agree with your reasoning on this issue.
It’s still label and dismiss – because you are saying that something about her character or actions automatically destroys the actual argument she is putting forward on this issue.
The argument against condoms exists on its own merits, and it has nothing to do with how some people who support it actually represent themselves in public.
The point I was making by quoting her was to show that in Africa we have a whole bunch of Western organisations trying to impose their own sexual values (or lack of them really!) upon another culture that is resistant to those values.
You then go on to dismiss Martin Sempa’s comments (a Ugandan man who has been working in the AIDS field for over 16 years!) just because he is an African Male!!!
Come on Capitan, that’s just not cricket.
2. “Having worked on the ground in Africa, speaking to people living with HIV, to community health workers, women lacking power and income I stand by my statement that it’s head-in-the-sand stuff for our Church to advocate for denying these people what they need.”
But the Church isn’t denying these people what they need!
They are opposed to an immoral proposition that is being misrepresented as a perfectly moral answer to the problem of AIDS in Africa.
They are also opposing a proposition which has been shown to be ineffective and dangerous in the fight against AIDS.
You even state that the real issue is women who lack power and income – well, how is a condom going to give them either of those things?
It doesn’t; because it can’t.
The condom mentality is only beneficial to one gender – and that’s males, because it absolves them of their responsibility for their immoral actions.
And condoms ain’t ever gonna get you a better income!
Once again, we must also question the notion that women’s inequality is really at the heart of the AIDS crisis in Africa.
The country with the most favourable conditions to women, and the most advanced feminist movement, also has the highest rate of HIV – surely something isn’t right with the theory that this is caused by a patriarchal male society abusing women.
If it’s an equality and women’s income issue then surely that country should have less AIDS?
The real problem here is one of infra-structure and government systems – many of these countries have little, if any infra-structure, and this is the real problem here.
Often the countries are being run by despotic regimes who are corrupt as hell and stealing aid money and supplies like nobody’s business.
In such a climate; certain Western population control groups have been able to set up in Africa and carry out all sorts of abuses against women under the guise of “international relief”.
The UNFPA’s real focus is on population control – this is an organisation that has been caught medically sterilising African women by telling them that they were getting a flu-shot.
This is the same organisation that rushed into the Balkins, and the first thing they offered the women fleeing from genocide were mobile abortion clinics.
UNICEF are just as bad – with a long history of involvement in population control activities.
There is strong evidence that these activities have actually been contributing to the spread of HIV in Africa.
I mentioned the Depo-Provera kits in a post above, but these agencies have also been involved with importing portable abortion equipment into Africa.
Since at least 1991 – International Product Assistance Services (IPAS) – has been manufacturing and distributing the Manual Vacuum Aspirator (MVA) into Africa and elsewhere.
The MVA is a handheld suction pump about 35cm long and 10cm in diameter, with a cannulae (plastic surgical tube with a cutting edge at one end – like a giant needle) that is approx 35 – 40cm long on the end of it.
You can see a picture of it here: http://www.ipas.org/images/products/MVA_Plus.jpg
This device is a portable abortion device (that’s all it does) that is used and reused over and over again in Africa and other developing nations.
It literally cuts and sucks the baby from the womb by hand pumping.
IPAS advertises that “Reusable aspirator results in very low per-procedure cost”
And According to IPAS: “In the United States, the cannulae are strictly single-use. Where reuse is required and local regulations allow, the cannulae must undergo sterilization or high-level disinfection before reuse.”
The Cannulae is single use in USA because it is almost impossible to sterilise hardened plastic.
Yet in Africa, the cannulae is being used and reused, over and over again.
We know that Abortion is used to prevent AIDS transmission to babies in Africa.
According to the UN WHO – “Access to safe abortion… should be part of the services [for pregnant HIV positive women]” –
1997 the WHO estimated that in Sub-Saharan Africa there were 4,400,000 unsafe abortions performed each year.
According to the WHO and UNAIDS Reports, “overall about twice as many young women as men are infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
This points to two things…
1. That the abuse of African women does not involve as many African men as some organisations are trying to make out.
Think about it; if the majority of African men are abusing women for sex, then men should represent more highly in the AIDS figures – because; as the disease is given to a female, in theory it will be spread to all the other men who also become sexually active with that woman.
AIDS doesn’t discriminate between sexes.
2. There has to be some other reason as to why women are almost twice as likely to contract HIV as the men are!
a) We know the Depo-Provera has been scientifically shown to increase a female’s risk of contracting HIV (see my pot above), and that it had been shipped into Africa and given to African women millions of times.
c) We know that studies show “a higher HIV prevalence has been observed in women seen in prenatal, postpartum, and induced abortion settings than in their community counterparts.”
And that the MVA has been shipped into Africa by Western agenda groups, and used regularly in unclean settings, over and over again even though it’s only supposed to be used once.
There is so much more research that could be employed in this debate, about the real causes of this problem, but all people seem to want to do is blame the Church for her opposition to this evil!
History and science will prove that the Church was right on this issue (as they have already begun to do).
Yes Raymond, I suppose you could use the alcohol analogy but for every person who employs that – and the cliche “it’s a band aid solution – we need to fix the underlying problems”, I ask this: What are you doing about the root cause?
A band aid is better than nothing at all.
Capitan,
1. If Jesus came across a married couple with an HIV positive man and a disease free wife, would he say to that man…
a) It really shows true love to have sex with your wife by using a device that has been shown will place her at risk of death every time you have sex, so go for it!
Or
b) True love is self-sacrificing and it places the other completely before self, so love your wife by abstaining from sex and keeping her completing safe from death through HIV at your hand.
2. The stats I quote are hardly obscure Capitan, unless you think that the UN, the WHO, the UNFPA are obscure little organisations.
The simple fact is that the condom lobby groups have all the money, and that enables them to get their ideology out in a more efficient manner.
It also enables them to choose the messages they promote to the public, so instead of actual acknowledging valid research they either ignore it or attack it.
3. Time for some HARD FACTS about condoms, AIDS and Africa…
a) In the November 27, 2004, issue of the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, more than 150 of the world’s leading AIDS scientists and other experts in AIDS prevention and treatment signed a statement in which they declared that “the time has come for common ground” on preventing HIV/AIDS. Of the three interventions scientifically shown to prevent AIDS—abstinence, being faithful, and using condoms—they argue that the use of condoms clearly comes last and should be promoted as a first-line defense only to those in extremely high-risk groups, such as commercial sex workers.
b) “So far, there’s no good evidence that condoms will reverse population-wide epidemics like those in sub-Saharan Africa,” Dr. Edward Green
c) The total number of condoms distributed in South Africa during 1998 was nearly 210 million, according to an October 20, 2001, article in the British Medical Journal.
Did this giant increase curb the pandemic?
On the contrary: Statistics released by South Africa’s government in 2005 revealed that death rates skyrocketed from an average of 870 deaths a day in 1997 to 1,370 deaths a day in 2002—a 57 percent increase. Deaths of individuals ages 15 to 49 (when people are most sexually active) more than doubled, the New York Times reported.
d) In Botswana, condom sales rose from 1 million to 3 million between 1993 and 2001. Meanwhile, HIV prevalence among urban pregnant women rose from 27 percent to 45 percent.
e) During the same period in Cameroon, condom sales increased from 6 million to 15 million, while HIV prevalence rose from 3 percent to 9 percent, Dr. Hearst and Sanny Chen reported in the March 2004 Studies in Family Planning.
f) In Zimbabwe, which Dr. Green notes “has one of the highest condom user rates in Africa,” infection rates were so high by 2002 that UNAIDS experts noted that if present trends continue, by 2020 the country will have lost 30 percent of its work force to AIDS-related diseases.
g) Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning at University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the June 21, 2003, British Medical Journal: “The rapid spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the greatest failures in the history of public health.”
h) Looking at evidence culled from the best of more than 4,000 studies of HIV-infected individuals sexually active with members of the opposite sex, a recent international Cochrane review concluded that consistent use of condoms may reduce HIV infection by about 80 percent. The review team added, however, that effectiveness against HIV may be “as high as 94.2 percent” or “as low as 35.4 percent.”
According to Dr Edward Green; in Africa the lower number is more likely to be the case.
i) Let’s assume that condoms are 85 percent effective (the most commonly accepted scientific finding).
What does this mean?
“It means that if 100 people have sex with HIV-infected partners and they never use condoms, seven of the 100 will become infected within a year. If they always use condoms, one in 100 people will become infected,” explains Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., chairman of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas.
This looks impressive at first glance. But applied to a population of 10 million couples having sex for three years, we’re talking about approximately 300,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS. And that’s assuming perfect condom use, which doesn’t happen in broad populations in real life.
What’s more, the one-in-100 estimate may be too low. In Zambia, doctors gave out condoms and spermicides to 110 couples in which only one partner was HIV-infected. Among couples who said they always used condoms during sex, 2.3 percent of healthy partners became HIV-infected within a year.
j) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that even among men who used condoms regularly, human error resulted in possible HIV exposure in about 13 percent of sexual acts. And this was among well-educated American men. How much higher would this failure rate be among illiterate young men in rural Africa?
k) In the April 30, 2004, issue of Science, Rand L. Stoneburner and Daniel Low-Beer of Cambridge University observed that “Uganda has shown a 70 percent decline in HIV prevalence since the early 1990s, linked to a 60 percent reduction in casual sex.” They noted that this made the reduction of casual sex in Uganda as good as a highly effective vaccine
l) Now that Uganda has become the classic African AIDS success story, some ABC critics claim that condoms secretly saved the day. And yet, throughout the period when HIV rates decreased most dramatically, condom use in Uganda remained low:
“Only 8 percent of all Ugandans between ages 15 and 49 say they used a condom during the last intercourse. And most of that use was probably inconsistent,” Dr. Green says.
M) Furthermore, the ABC model is working in other African nations. In Kenya before 1999, the major response to AIDS was supplying and promoting condoms—with little or no effect on the pandemic.
Finally, the Kenyan government introduced an ABC approach. As Dr. Green reported in the Journal of Medicine and the Person this year, between 1998 and 2003 the overall prevalence of HIV in adults went from 10 percent to 6.7 percent.
4. Capitan, you acknowledged yourself in an earlier post that the A and B are important – the actual point that you don’t seem to be getting is that the A and B are the real cause of the success in Uganda and other places.
Condoms by themselves don’t work – that’s as clear as day; but you could quite easily drop the condoms out of ABC and you’d have a hugely successful program.
And that is what the Church is all about.
Christ doesn’t offer us partial redemption, or harm minimized approaches to sin, he offers us new life.
Why then would the Church support an approach that only offers part of the solution and still exposes users to serious risk of death?
Condoms aren’t doing anything to help stop the spread of AIDS – if you can’t see that from all the evidence I’ve presented here then you are not looking, you are just seeing what you want to see.
Capitan,
You state “a band-aid is better than nothing at all”.
In actual fact, a band-aid on a gapping wound is useless – it simply won’t work.
So to suggest that the Church should change an infallible teaching, given by the Holy Spirit, to support a band-aid approach to a huge social crisis is just silly.
And that’ the point I’ve been trying to make – the scientific evidence alone is enough to say that the Church is right to hold the position she does on this issue.
You are focussing on condoms, but how are condoms going to help countries with poor infrastructure, despotic regimes and no money?
How are they going to help women get equality, empowerment and the respect and dignity they deserve?
They simply aren’t the answer.
BTM, I don’t know what Jesus would say. And nor do you. I was saying the question continues to rage in my head. I don’t have the answer to it and, once again, neither do you.
I’m not suggesting the Church change its teaching – I’m voicing my discomfort with it.
I’m not saying they’re the answer, but from what I’ve seen – and it sounds to me like you have a lot of facts but very little experience here – they ARE a part of it.
Are you serious Captain? you seem to contradict yourself a fair bit. Doesn’t all that evidence mean anything to you? Condoms are a piece of latex to enable men to have sex without responsibility. Try answering BTMs last 2 questions and I’m sure condoms won’t be the answer, they can’t be.
If you’re not suggesting the Church change her teaching, what are you suggesting? You also seem to be saying that AIDS cannot be reduced without condoms but reasearch would prove otherwise. I just don’t get why you’re so averse to everything BTM has said.
Capitan,
1. “BTM, I don’t know what Jesus would say. And nor do you. I was saying the question continues to rage in my head. I don’t have the answer to it and, once again, neither do you.”
You can’t seriously be suggesting that you think that Christ would support an HIV positive man placing the life of his wife in serious danger for sexual intercourse?
2. “I’m not suggesting the Church change its teaching – I’m voicing my discomfort with it.”
No worries, but then I tried to explain why science is on the side of the Church in regards to this issue, and you came back with statements like…
“A band aid is better than nothing at all.”
“…to simplify this issue down to the number of condoms distributed versus the rate at which HIV is spreading highlights exactly what I think is wrong with our Church and young Catholics today.”
“Children are dying and being orphaned at a horrific rate – they are your brothers and sisters in Christ and you feel that moralising to the point of inaction is an acceptable response?”
“I can’t, in all good conscience, agree with our Church”
“I stand by my statement that it’s head-in-the-sand stuff for our Church to advocate for denying these people what they need.”
“…but the C cannot and must not be left off the end.”
What’s a man to think Capitan, when you are clearly opposed to the teaching and you clearly believe that condoms should be supported by the Church?
How can you then say that you aren’t advocating that the Church change her teaching on this issue?
If you really believed that, then you wouldn’t be so uncomfortable with the Church holder her position on this issue.
The simple fact is that the Church is doing more than its fair share for people with AIDS – over 25% of AIDS care in the world is provided by Catholic institutions.
The Church is very aware of the real crisis, an far from having her head in the sand, she is actually offering people a truly caring and dignified solution that offers true hope – not just “use this condom and hopefully you’ll be okay”.
And nowhere does the Church advocate that her position on this issue is an excuse for inaction against HIV/AIDS.
3. “I’m not saying they’re the answer, but from what I’ve seen – and it sounds to me like you have a lot of facts but very little experience here – they ARE a part of it.”
And here in lies the rub.
The problem with this debate, and many debates over moral issues, is that people argue from an emotional and passionate point of view without looking at the facts.
And there is a huge problem with this approach to moral issues, because the facts represent the truth of this situation.
And passion without truth leads to ideology.
Where people are no longer prepared to examine the truth of a matter and act accordingly, instead they only want to act in a way that feels good or right to them.
No, I have never been to Africa and seen the horrors that you have seen, but the organisation I work for is closely connected to what is happening in that part of the world through various things we do.
I am well aware of the grave crisis in Africa, but I am also well aware that it will not be solved by flawed Western ideologies about human sexuality.
In fact they will only make the situation worse for the African people.
I think the Captain may be getting at is that while the Church tries to gets its message of abstinence across, millions are still getting infected by HIV. The Church’s message is not going to reach everyone, so what do we do with the poor and destitute who don’t get the message?
I think this is what the Captain was getting at with her examples of women who are forced to sell their bodies to support their families.
Whew! There’s a lot of reading in this post that for sure.
Thanks to all who are taking part – especially in such a heated topic. Let’s make sure we avoid personal attacks though, and keep to the topic at hand.
Captain, let me be clear first of all that I have no real-world experience with dealing directly with the problems in Africa. So I am in awe of those of you who actually get out there and make things happen. First of all, kudos and thank God for you and yours, and for making us realise how big the problem is, and that we can always do more.
Secondly, you state originally “When we’re talking about people who barely have enough food to eat, clean water to drink, or access to medication, people who are reduced – through poverty they did not choose – to living in conditions no human being should, who is the Vatican to say their only path to heaven involves a denial of access to, in many cases, life-saving prevention?“.
I suppose my question is how do condoms feature in this scenario?
If the poverty is so rampant, and the access to food, water and medication are so dire, surely that should be the focus of aid organisations, right? So how does that conflict with Church teaching?
I also take your point that the AIDS epidemic threatens any good aid work done, but shouldn’t the aid agencies be communicating that this IS an epidemic? By that I mean that when a country is faced with an epidemic of disease, actions and customs and practices need to change. Whether that is the Black Plague or influenza or AIDS – the society that is inflicted with the epidemic needs to funamentally change.
I point to the changes in the way society functioned during the Black Plague. Different things were tried – i.e. different cleanliness routines, changes to social interaction, magic chants etc. – and all sorts of theories around the cause flew around while millions died. So they kept trying different things until they got the winning combination.
Now, if you look at AIDS in Africa, if condoms are accessible in the majority of the AIDS-stricken countries (correct me if they’re not) but the infection and death rates are still climbing, shouldn’t they/we be trying something else?
I totally admit to being a (mostly) uneducated bystander in this, but on the face of the facts (forgetting morals here), surely the only solution is A and B. C doesn’t solve anything, does it? I mean, it literally doesn’t solve anything from where I sit. Behaviour needs to change. If it doesn’t, then aren’t we going to be sitting here in 50 years either a) lamenting the same situation, or b) talking about the extinction of the African continent?
Conan,
I agree. How do we reach those who do not listen to A and B? I mean, if they’re going to ignore them, then what? Does the Church have an answer for that scenario? Anyone?
Captain, and all,
I haven’t had a chance to read all the posts but I’ll offer a quick point for what it’s worth.
Captain, let me quote you:
“I cannot, in all good conscience and faith in God, justify my Church’s teaching on contraception in the light of the suffering…”
Your premise is this:
“—Because of all the suffering from AIDS, the Church should change its moral principles.—”
Captain, your position is never acceptable in Christian Life.
The same reasoning is used for:
-Euthanasia
-Abortion
-Eugenics
The advocates for euthanasia say, “lots of people suffering,….therefore we should legalise murder of the elderly….”
The abortionists say, “lots of girls in bad situations, baby will not have good life, lets legalise killing babies…”
The Eugensists say, “the weak suffer and cause others to suffer, lets get rid of them…”
One can never alter the eternal moral laws due to suffering ok. Suffering is a part of life.
We must take responsibilities for our actions. If we sleep around, somebody is going to get hurt: emotionally (baggage), and physically (AIDS, abuse, diseases)…
Now, you think that contraception is ok, so you don’t think that altering the Churchs position is evil.
Can I suggest that you read up properly why the Church is against contracpetion and you might start to understand why condoms shouldn’t used as a means to stop AIDs; – apart from the fact, as BTM has pointed out, that condoms don’t solves it even if they were morally licit.
JPIII,
I suggest you do read the rest of comments as the discussion has been a good one.
Can I just point out that I’m still looking for a response to what the Church is supposed to do when people ignore the A and the B of ABC? From where I sit, they can go to reconciliation for their eternal redemption, but infect a bunch of people along the way with HIV.
Thoughts everyone?
1. Conan, you said…
“I think the Captain may be getting at is that while the Church tries to gets its message of abstinence across, millions are still getting infected by HIV. The Church’s message is not going to reach everyone, so what do we do with the poor and destitute who don’t get the message?
I think this is what the Captain was getting at with her examples of women who are forced to sell their bodies to support their families.”
a) Firstly Conan, as JP III has already stated, there are plenty of situations where the same reasoning could be applied and used to justify all sorts of immoral acts.
There are plenty of people who can’t seem to follow the Churches teaching on not murdering other people – should we make exceptions to allow those who really can’t be reached by “thou shall not kill”?
What about those who can’t be reached by “rape is gravely immoral” – maybe we should find a way to make rape safe and then allow that exception as well?
Moral law is not built on the lowest common denominator and it is not meant to change to suit human weakness.
b) Condoms still carry a serious risk for users – it is highly probable that they will transmit or contract the disease the longer they keep engaging in sexual intercourse (even with condom usage).
Why would the Church accommodate a course of action that is actually highly unethical and likely to expose innocent persons to a death sentence?
c) The poor and the destitute are actually probably the most likely to experience condom failures thanks to user error – so it becomes even more dangerous for them.
d) The promotion of condoms is not going to do anything to help women who are forced to sell their bodies to support their families.
Where are the men in this situation?
Why aren’t we doing more to provide welfare or positive personal and financial empowerment for these women?
Why would the Church support condom use that is actually aimed at making the abuse of women less riskier – the Church opposes the abuse, it doesn’t want to see that abuse made sexually safe!
The Church is in the business of promoting God’s law, not the easiest way out, or sham solutions to very serious problems.
James, you said…
“I’m still looking for a response to what the Church is supposed to do when people ignore the A and the B of ABC? From where I sit, they can go to reconciliation for their eternal redemption, but infect a bunch of people along the way with HIV.”
James, the Church doesn’t actually have any obligation to change the truth of moral law just because people choose to ignore it and act in an immoral manner.
All of us are daily faced with the choice as to whether or not we will follow God’s law in all manner of aspects of our daily life.
Will I speed or will I stay within the legal limit?
Will I hit that guy or will I act with restraint?
Will I commit adultery, or will I be faithful to my wife?
Will I look at porn or will I choose not to?
What about all of these moral situations? – There are plenty of people who choose not to live up to any of these things.
Should the Church change the moral law and allow men to look at pornography if they really feel that they can’t be without it?
The real problem with the condom debate is that for years the West has embraced a bad philosophy known as harm minimisation – where, instead of trying to do everything we can to eradicate a social or moral problem (by addressing it’s root causes) we simply accept the behaviour and try to find ways to make it safer so that we can live with it.
But harm minimisation philosophy is completely counter to true human dignity and it is a grave sin against hope.
It basically says that we can never have hope of achieving a true and lasting change in regards to moral and social issues, so we should just learn to live with them.
And it says that humans do not have the dignity to make good moral choices that will allow them transcend moral error because they are nothing more than animals who can’t control their urges and choose the good.
Imagine if people had of tried to practise “safe slavery” – I mean, after all; everyone was practising slavery anyway, so why don’t we make it safe for those caught up in?
Or what about safe racial segregation – after all, everyone in South Africa was doing it, and no one thought they would stop doing it – so why not make it safe for everyone involved?
We either believe that humans are programmed for hope and have the power to transcend weakness and hopelessness, or we believe that humans are just mindless creatures who are ruled by their urges and have no power to better themselves.
James,
Also…
A person with AIDS is not exempt from moral law – they cannot just wander around sleeping with people and knowingly exposing them to death.
That is a gravely immoral act.
Just as it would be a gravely immoral act for me to wander round injecting people with anthrax because I wanted to feel good.
Ok BTM, so we sit around and believe that humans are programmed for hope and hold to our high moral standards while millions around us die.
It may be harm minimisation but most would see it as a quick fix to a problem that could become rampant. I read of this example:
“In Aids-ravaged Africa, the Church has steadfastly maintained its traditional line that chastity and abstinence are the best way to prevent Aids.
But this approach distresses workers on the ground, who regularly see wives who stick by the Catholic teachings of fidelity in marriage infected by their promiscuous husbands. The women and men then die, leaving young children and babies as orphans.”
What does the Church do if noone conforms to the moral law it preaches? What then? I’m all for preaching abstinence and fidelity but at what point do you acknowledge that it may not work?
I think the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS / HIV is a catch-22 type situation. It may work, but it will also fuel the problem of promiscuity etc.
Hi Conan,
A couple of things…
1. “What does the Church do if noone conforms to the moral law it preaches?”
That happens all the time though Conan, on all manner of issues.
Why are we not looking for ways to make adultery safe? After all millions of people are committing adultery on a daily basis and they are exposing their marriages, their wives and their families to physical and emotional risks.
Think about the example of Christ and the rich young man who went away sad – Christ didn’t say “hold on fella, come back, just sell a few of your things and keep the rest and than come follow me”
Or in John 6 when he talked of the Eucharist and when his followers began to disown him he said “this is a hard teaching and not everyone can accept it” – but he didn’t change the teaching because people didn’t like it.
That’s what freewill is all about.
All human beings are endowed with the freewill to choose to do the good, or to commit evil and turn away from the Good.
2. “What then? I’m all for preaching abstinence and fidelity but at what point do you acknowledge that it may not work?”
Conan, all the research on this issue shows us that abstinence and fidelity ARE the very things that are working and making the difference in the fight against AIDS and other sexual diseases.
Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, the Philippines are all places where abstinence and fidelity are kicking the **** of HIV.
In the US alone, at last count, we have at least 11 major sexual abstinence programs that have been shown to produce better results in combating sexual disease than condom programs do.
Yet, countries that promote condoms as the answer are ravaged with AIDS – in fact the countries with the most condom sales have the highest HIV rates.
Like I said earlier – you could take the C out of ABC and you’d still have a hugely successful weapon against HIV, but if you took the AB out and have C on its own then research is clear that the problem gets worse.
3. “I think the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS / HIV is a catch-22 type situation. It may work, but it will also fuel the problem of promiscuity etc.”
Actually Conan – research is clear that condom promotion does actually increase promiscuity and unsafe behaviors.
We must also remember that condom users fail to consistently or correctly use condoms all of the time, which simply increases the spread of the disease.
And finally; CONDOMS ARE NOT 100% FULL PROOF against HIV.
People are debating this issue as if condoms are risk free, or they are the magic silver bullet that will protect people from AIDS – but they aren’t.
The best they can promise is possible reduced risk – but the longer a person carries on having sex with condoms the greater the risk of catching HIV becomes.
Let me quote from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (an organization that exists to promote abortion and contraception)…
“the risk of contracting AIDS during so called protected sex approaches 100 percent as the number of episodes of sexual intercourse increases” – IPPF Medical Bulletin 31
In UK – approximately 80% of emergency contraceptive requests arise from contraceptive failures – which are mainly condoms.
In NZ – a well educated country that is saturated with condom education and condoms – last year was our highest number of HIV cases ever; with one new HIV infection every two days.
4. “But this approach distresses workers on the ground, who regularly see wives who stick by the Catholic teachings of fidelity in marriage infected by their promiscuous husbands. The women and men then die, leaving young children and babies as orphans.”
I’m not sure where you got this quote from, but I’m pretty confident it’d be an organisation that supports condom use in the fight against AIDS.
I mention this because it will affect the way they report issues relating to AIDS in Africa, condoms, etc.
I personally know of a priest in Africa who has told close friends that he has experienced an increased interest in Catholicism from Africans, because the faithful Catholics there have the lowest incidents of HIV infection – and people are seeing that and want to sign on to whatever it is they’ve got!
But aside from that, let’s examine what they are actually saying in the article you quote, and why it is so seriously flawed.
a) You’ve got a promiscuous husband who is committing a gravely immoral act of adultery, and in doing so he is exposing himself and his wife to AIDS
b) The suggestion here is that he will eventually give the disease to his wife and they will both die leaving orphan children
Here’s the problem with introducing condoms into that scenario
a) It reinforces the notion that it is acceptable for the husband to keep committing the gravely immoral act of adultery, and to keep exposing his wife to HIV as long as he uses a condom
b) CONDOMS ARE NOT 100% FULL-PROOF against HIV, which means that the more the husband does what he does, the greater the chance becomes that the wife will STILL get infected with HIV – it may take a little longer with the use of condoms, but the research tells us that sooner or later she will get the disease – so what has really been achieved here???
c) What happens when, even with condom use, the wife gets AIDS from the immoral husband and they both die – now you have an even greater evil; where a child is left orphaned and exposed to all sorts of serious risks (short term and long term).
Why would the Church endorse such a course of action as being morally acceptable?!!
The root cause of this scenario is not the lack of condoms – it’s the behaviour of the husband.
But instead of trying to address this, the condom answer requires that we normalise and try and live with that behaviour by trying to reduce the risk involved in it (but all you end up doing is increasing the time it takes for the person to actually contract the disease).
How does that empower women in Africa?
It doesn’t, because it African men that infidelity and exposing your wife to physical death is acceptable.
Let’s apply this reasoning to another scenario.
I’m in the car with my pregnant wife and I decide that I want to drink and drive, and travel at speeds of 150kph plus in urban city streets.
Does my wife become empowered by wearing her seatbelt and making sure that the ABS is on?
Do my actions now become acceptable and safe because my wife has a seatbelt on?
Is my wife in a better situation because she has a seatbelt on?
Now let me propose a better way of dealing with the scenario you mentioned…
a) Education of the African people, both moral and intellectual, to promote fidelity and the message that promiscuity and adultery are dangerous and socially unacceptable practises.
Now for those reading who think that this is impossible; just stop and think about the success we’ve had in less than 20 years with cigarettes, drink driving and other health and safety campaigns that do exactly this!
b) Make rape a socially and legally unacceptable practise, through education and policing and court infrastructures.
c) Empower women through education and the support of the law to be able to say “no” their husbands without fear of reprisals, rape or violence
d) Equip families with the financial resources they need to become self-sufficient; which would empower women to get away from husbands who continue to fail to live up to the initial methods of dealing with this situation.
Condoms don’t deal with any of these issues, all they do is continue to perpetrate them and make the problem worse.
The more I think about this issue, the more I realise that moral relativism is really at the heart of the issue of condom promotion.
Think about it; we in the West have embraced the serious philosophical error of moral relativism (which teaches that there is no absolute truth, and therefore we have no authority to question the morality of another person’s actions).
The reason that we are throwing condoms at Africa instead of dealing with root causes like promiscuity and infidelity, is because we ourselves are so gravely immoral when it comes to human sexuality.
How hypocritical would it look for us to be trying to promote abstinence and fidelity when we are doing the exact opposite ourselves?
We have embraced the stupid and false notion that it is “judgemental” or wrong to challenge the immoral behaviour of another person.
We don’t want to confront the real issues at the heart of this problem because that would mean that the West would have to face up to some rather frightening realities of our own in this regard.
Instead we try and impose our philosophical errors upon Africa.
When you embrace philosophical error; the longer you embrace it the harder it becomes to overcome and the more entrenched it gets.
So we wander into Africa, and instead of dealing with serious root causes, we ignore them or offer solutions that allow the real problems to keep happening – even if it means exposing people to premature and avoidable death.
Our logic becomes circular and insane; promiscuous people need condoms so that they can keep being promiscuous, and then we need more condoms because of all the promiscuous people.
We try and comfort ourselves with reassuring (but seriously erroneous) platitudes like “what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is their business”.
How ridiculous, and our current HIV, sexual disease, teen pregnancy and abortion problems just prove how false that notion really is.
It’s kind of like the local swimming pool offering a urinating and non-urinating section of the same pool.
Conan, if I may add a little comment in reply to what you said:
“I think the Captain may be getting at is that while the Church tries to gets its message of abstinence across, millions are still getting infected by HIV. The Church’s message is not going to reach everyone, so what do we do with the poor and destitute who don’t get the message?”
So, the Church has a message which
a) is not getting to everyone, and
b) is not being listened to by everyone.
What shall the Church do?
Well, if there is a problem here, it seems to be in the TRANSMISSION of the message, not the content of the message.
“…so what do we do with the poor and destitute who don’t get the message?”
I propose Conan, if this really is a problem, that we explore more ways of communicating the message. Why change it?
It’s easy for us in this country – from the safety of our desks and warm churches – to moral-standpoint on “Africa and all its issues”. But what good does that do?
I am incredibly frustrated by all the time and energy put into gathering facts and contructing arguments that discredit condoms, or discredit aid agencies, or discredit the theory behind helping people in need. I wish I had the time to rebuff each and every one of your points BTM, but I don’t and for this I’m sorry.
This issue will not go away, and sitting here in New Zealand justifying our inaction – as Catholics and rich Westerners – is unacceptable. In my humble opinion.
Capitan,
1. “It’s easy for us in this country – from the safety of our desks and warm churches – to moral-standpoint on “Africa and all its issues”. But what good does that do?”
Capitan, it is actually vitally important to make sure that you know who and what you are on about before you engage in any course of action.
This is what ethics and morality is all about.
It is completely ludicrous to suggest that any course of action is acceptable as long as it feels like its helping to remedy a situation.
That’s called the end justifying the means – and that’s about the most irresponsible and dangerous moral path that someone can head down.
Imagine if I proposed that the best way to deal with all the AIDS in Africa was by hunting down and shooting all the HIV positive people.
What can’t we do that?
I’ll tell you why; because it’s immoral!
To suggest that we should just commit to a course of action without even questioning the morality of that course of action is insane, and it’s exactly what is wrong with the West right now.
After all; what good does it do to question the morality of war? – lots of Americans think that the invasion of Iraq was actually helpful to dealing with the crisis of terrorism and helping the people of Iraq.
Or what good does it do to question the morality of abortion? – lots of people think that abortion is an excellent solution to teenage pregnancy.
The simple fact, Capitan, is that you are making moral judgments about the Church, and about Westerners not doing more in Africa – yet here you seem to be saying that you oppose the right of others to do exactly the same thing you are doing.
2. “I am incredibly frustrated by all the time and energy put into gathering facts and contructing arguments that discredit condoms, or discredit aid agencies, or discredit the theory behind helping people in need.”
a) Firstly Capitan, I don’t believe anyone (and certainly not the Church) has suggested here that because condom promotion is immoral and ineffective that means that we don’t have to do anything to help people in need.
In fact, if you read my posts I make several references to alternative moral strategies that could easily be employed as alternatives to condom promotion and other current approaches.
Once again, here you are saying that we should just do something without even examining the facts to see if it’s actually an effective or moral course of action – that makes no sense.
What you appear to be saying is that we should just ignore the glaring facts about condom ineffectiveness, the failure of condom strategies and the huge success that fidelity and abstinence is having, in favor of doing things that have been shown to be ineffective, or that don’t address the root causes of the crisis just because some Westerners prefer those methodologies?
b) The “aid agencies” I have made mention of, are nothing more than glorified population control agencies that actively participate in gravely immoral and racist activities aimed at controlling populations.
The UNFPA and IPPF are actively involved in actually carrying out forced abortions in China, on behalf of the communist government there.
When women speak out against this grave evil they are imprisoned and tortured.
If the UNFPA and IPPF are aid agencies then I’m Winnie the Pooh.
c) What’s wrong with challenging a methodology and ideology “behind helping people in need” if that methodology is actually not working, or is making the problem worse, or will not actually provide any lasting benefit?
Surely, any theory should be open to challenge and changing course to become more effective at helping people – if the people behind it are really truly concerned with helping and not just imposing their own morality or worldview on other cultures?
d) “This issue will not go away, and sitting here in New Zealand justifying our inaction – as Catholics and rich Westerners – is unacceptable. In my humble opinion. “
You are completely right that inaction on this issue, or any other serious situation where people are in genuine need is unacceptable and gravely immoral.
But let’s get one thing straight – no one here, least of all the Church, is suggesting that just because condom ideology is immoral and ineffective that means we are free to do nothing in Africa!
In fact; many of us are involved with financial sponsorship and support of organizations that are active in this area.
Let’s face facts – you appear to be suggesting that “if we don’t support condoms we are cruel, heartless beasts who can’t offer anything to Africa”.
This is nonsense.
It’s not “condoms or nothing” – it’s “condoms or abstinence and fidelity”.
Countries with condoms, and no AB are getting nowhere in the fight against AIDS – countries that have adopted an AB first and C as a last resort are winning that fight!
And countries that have AB and no C are doing even better (just look at the Philippines!).
What’s clearly obvious from this is that condoms are NOT what works against AIDS – it’s the AB bit that is the answer!
So the Church, with science and natural law on her side keeps boldly proclaiming the truth!
And in time, history will prove she was right, the question is will those who oppose the Church learn this sooner or later?