Loading...
Loading...
On-Air Promo Creative 115x175
|| Health News ||
Page 1 of 1

Obama to Remove Abstinence Requirement for HIV Funding

President-elect Barack Obama plans to overhaul the Bush administration's international family planning and AIDS prevention funding policy, which excludes abortion and strictly supports abstinence-only education.



President-elect Barack Obama plans to overhaul the Bush administration's international family planning and AIDS prevention funding policy, which excludes abortion and strictly supports abstinence-only education.

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, enacted by President George Bush, is a $45 billion program that distributes drugs and offers prevention and relief to 3 million people in poor countries around the world. The program requires that abstinence and monogamy be stressed more than condom use, which many believe result in even higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, Susan Wood, Obama's cochair for women's health advisement, told Bloomberg News.

"We have been going in the wrong direction, and we need to turn it around and be promoting prevention and family planning services and strengthening public health," she said in the article.

On his first day in office in January 2001, Bush reinstated a policy barring the United State from funding family planning for organizations involved with abortion or comprehensive sex education.

Wood resigned as an Food and Drug Administration regulator for women's health in 2005 in protest of the agency's delay in clearing over-the-counter sales of the "morning-after pill" for two years. (Michelle Garcia, The Advocate)

Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Facebook. Page 1 of 1
Reader Comments
  • Name: Patrick
    Date posted: 11/12/2008 10:28:00 PM
    Hometown: Grand Rapids, Michigan

    Comment:

    It's about time we got pro-active on the HIV/AIDS issue. And it's about time we stopped hiding our heads in the sand and thinking that that abstinence and monogamy as moral as these might be would be used by the masses. Even in a time that the desease is considered "cronic" which means it can be controled through drug thearpy, it's still a killer, with no known cure. And the side effects related to the medication are intollarable for some. Lets find a cure!



More Online Only
  • Art Slideshow Flag Artist Spotlight: Que Duong

    A fortune-teller told Que Duong's mother he would amount to nothing — which is why he gives everything he has to each photo he takes.

  • Music Thicke and Juicy

    Sexy soul singer Robin Thicke opens up about his Precious wife, homophobia in the music industry, and the gay men who’ve shaped his life and love since childhood. 

  • Internet Herman on Why He Wants to Stop H8

    Fitness trainer, Real World alum, and marriage equality advocate Scott Herman took some time between crunches to tell The Advocate that his concern for gay rights isn't manufactured, and he doesn't mind men checking him out.

  • News Celebration of Courage Not So Courageous

    Advocate contributor Michael Lucas says the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission needs to be doing more to stop violence against gays and lesbians in countries "oppressed by Islam."

  • Commentary The Truth Behind Her Name Was Steven

    Advocate contributor Eden Lane says CNN's Her Name Was Steven will help raise the visibility of trans people on TV, but the most compelling part of Susan Stanton's journey was left to a title card at the end of the film.

  • Television Laverne, Surely

    I Want to Work for Diddy alum Laverne Cox leads a trio of transgender ladies in VH1’s Transform Me, a new makeover show that flatters her hooker-heavy résumé.

  • Music Cherie’s Jubilee

    With The Runaways, the new film about her life with Joan Jett, pioneering rock star Cherie Currie is enjoying a renaissance ... with a little help from Dakota Fanning.

  • Activism Sex-Ed Student Turns Teen Activist

    When sex education classes at Danny Sparks's high school failed to address the issues important to him, he took matters into his own hands ... and became an activist in the process.

  • Photography Slideshow Flag Artist Spotlight: Ryan Colford

    From his "candy shoppe" line — sweet treats made oh-so sexy — to his black and white studies of the male form, photographer Ryan Colford exposes the beauty of the male body.

  • Commentary What Massa Could Learn From Ashburn

    COMMENTARY: Matthew S. Bajko says Republican California state senator Roy Ashburn deserves praise for coming out of the closet despite his antigay voting record. Now, if only former congressman Eric Massa would follow his lead.

  • Music The Truth About Tracy and Kim

    Don’t be tardy for this party! DJ Tracy Young comes clean — mostly — about her rumored lesbian relationship with Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak.

  • News Video Content Flag Kids Say the Darndest Things

    Micah Schraft and his boyfriend, John, were filming Micah's family at Thanksgiving when the 5-year-old son of a family friend wanted to know if the two were husbands. The result is a video you have to see. 

  • Commentary The Importance of Being Counted

    With benefits from boosting hate-crimes and marriage equality laws to simply letting legislators know gay Americans indeed exist, the 2010 Census is a chance to stand up and be counted.

1037 COVER X135 | ADVOCATE.COM