Recently, a retired Cardinal of the Catholic church voiced his opinion that condoms are a "lesser evil" when used to prevent the spread of AIDS. This week, a top cardinal announced that the Vatican is preparing a document regarding the use of condoms by those who are infected with HIV/AIDS.
The Catholic Church has, thus far, proudly clung to its life-affirming mantra of "punish the sluts with forced childbirth and death-by-STDs." Official statements issued by the Church have encouraged Catholics and missionary groups to teach blatant misinformation regarding condoms and the spread of HIV. I reviewed many of these lies a while back.
Married women are the population at highest risk for HIV infection in many areas of Africa, yet the Church has persisted in telling HIV-postive husbands not to use condoms to protect their wives. Catholic missionaries tell African men that condoms will cause them to become impotent, that condoms will cause them to contract STDs, that condoms do not protect against HIV, that condoms cause birth defects, and any other lie they feel necessary to prevent the use of condoms.
(In America, if a non-religious organization committed this kind of dangerous fraud, we would call it negligent homicide at the very least. Given the number of victims and the premeditation involved, it is more likely that the perpetrator would be charged with multiple counts of manslaughter.)
It is certainly too much to hope that Pope Benedict XVI will reverse the Church's anti-human stance on contraception, but there is a faint glimmer of hope that he will at least condescend to allow married, monogamous couples to use condoms for protection against spreading AIDS from an already-infected spouse to a non-infected spouse.
I'm not holding my breath.
On a related note, the CA State Supreme Court is addressing a case that asks, "Should an HIV-positive individual be legally required to divulge their status to their sexual partner(s)?" It is already a felony in California to knowingly infect another party with HIV/AIDS.
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Speaking of 'behind the times', has Bush's war really only cost $2.75 billion? I know those "true fiscal conservatives", to use the wolf's phrase, like to play fast and loose with the numbers. But I suspect even budgeted costs have far exceeded that.
Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A16
The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.
The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure.
Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $101.8 billion this fiscal year, up from $87.3 billion in 2005, $77.3 billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, congressional analysts said. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042601601.html
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