{"id":3319,"date":"2009-03-18T12:37:54","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T17:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anglicansamizdat.wordpress.com\/?p=3319"},"modified":"2009-03-18T12:37:54","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T17:37:54","slug":"the-pope-aids-and-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/the-pope-aids-and-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pope, Aids and Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is what Pope Benedict <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/comment\/faith\/article5927964.ece\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> about the Aids epidemic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Aids cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Echoing words spoken frequently by Pope John Paul II, Benedict declared that the &#8220;traditional teaching of the Church&#8221; on chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it had proved to be &#8220;the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV and Aids&#8221;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And here is a response from Planned Parenthood:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Kevin Osborne, HIV adviser at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, said: &#8220;All the evidence is that preaching sexual abstinence and fidelity will not solve the problems. We need to work with the reality of where people are, especially in countries he is visiting such as Angola, which is hard-hit by the epidemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Pope&#8217;s message will alienate everybody. It is scary. It spreads stigma and creates a fertile breeding ground for the spread of HIV.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a Roman Catholic and I&#8217;m not against birth control, but it is easy to spot the diversionary tactic employed in this response by Planned Parenthood. Obviously it&#8217;s not the <em>preaching alone<\/em> that would prevent the spread of Aids, but the preaching and practising of fidelity and abstinence. And there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholiceducation.org\/articles\/sexuality\/se0074.html\" target=\"_blank\">evidence<\/a> to suggest that it does work:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Uganda Winning the Battle Against AIDS &#8211; Using Abstinence<\/p>\n<p>Uganda may be on its way to wiping out AIDS by using the Biblical values of chastity and fidelity, a new Harvard University study finds. According to the study, abstinence education has shown significant effectiveness in reducing AIDS in Uganda, with the HIV infection rate dropping 50 percent between the years 1992 and 2000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is what Pope Benedict said about the Aids epidemic: &#8220;Aids cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems&#8221; Echoing words spoken frequently by Pope John Paul II, Benedict declared that the &#8220;traditional teaching of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/the-pope-aids-and-planned-parenthood\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,264],"tags":[2080,2233],"class_list":["post-3319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-pro-life","tag-christianity","tag-pro-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}