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Clueless in Africa

While touring Africa and defending her husband's use of international AIDS funds to market abstinence, First Lady Laura Bush said: "I'm always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100% effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease."

She went on to say: "In many countries where girls feel obligated to comply with the wishes of men, girls need to know that abstinence is a choice."

We cannot even get middle-class American girls to understand that abstinence is a choice, yet Bush is suggesting that girls whose only source of income involves having sex, and women whose husbands have never heard of equality in marriage just say no. Many young girls are forced to marry their husbands, and part of that obligation is sex; many other girls are forced into prostituion. A popular belief in Africa, especially South Africa, is that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS, and the men who opt for this "treatment" are not asking the virgins' permission.

The Bush administration has already endangered the lives of thousands of women and girls by restricting the counseling and educational activities of family planning clinics. Laura Bush's advice to African girls truly adds insult to injury.

Posted by Diane E. Dees on 01/17/06 at 7:37 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg this | de.licio.us



Comments

Man, I wish these people would get a clue. It is very disheartening. :(

Posted by: Red Jenny on 01/20/06 at 1:33 PM

If you were married to George Bush wouldn't you think 100% abstinence was a great way to live? heaven preserve me, i sure would.

Posted by: Edith Conrad on 01/20/06 at 1:57 PM

I am so sick and tired of these know-it-all-conservative hypocrits. Among them are Ron and Nancy Reagan, who "had a quite wedding and seven months later" had their first child
(from PBS' story on him recently), and Pat Robertson, who married his wife when she was seven months pregnant (from Deist website).

Posted by: Aurora E. Hunter on 01/20/06 at 2:02 PM

Why do i feel like our leaders are from another planet? How can they be so insensitive, uncaring, and just plain rude to people around the world. We, The People, need to get these callous rude crony's out of power before every shred of decency is stripped from our country!

Posted by: Debbie Gibson on 01/20/06 at 2:03 PM

Does the Bush twins abstain from sex? And they come from a wealthy, "educated" family.

Posted by: Ken Legacki on 01/20/06 at 2:05 PM

Sounds to me as if the women ought to be schooled to EXECUTE men who force their diseased selves on virgins.

How long of a campaign would it take for the losers to take their chances with the disease instead?

Posted by: R on 01/20/06 at 2:44 PM

What an embarrassment. I just wonder what other informed people from around the world must be saying amongst themselves when they hear inanities such as these.

Posted by: Jeffrey Platteis on 01/20/06 at 2:57 PM

The Xanax-popper has obviously learned by osmosis from her husband how to lie. In this case the method used was to tell the truth, but not all of the truth. Something a British civil servant told a court was "being economical with the truth."

The Stepford First Lady said "abstinence is absolutely 100% effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease." Well, yes, IF you are *100%* abstinent then it is 100% effective.

However, the rest of the truth is that the Bush program of pushing abstinence is NOT 100% effective because it does not cause people to be 100% abstinent. In fact in areas where it is taught in preference to promoting safe sex, the number of sexual encounters is the same but the use of condoms is less.

What boyfriend-killer (yes, she really was responsible for the death of a former boyfriend) Laura doesn't want you to know is that promoting abstinence instead of safe sex has INCREASED the incidence of sexual diseases. But if you're a religious zealot, you won't let little facts like that bother you because you won't question a word the Bush administration says.

Posted by: Brian de Ford on 01/20/06 at 4:57 PM

AIDS has been very effective in stopping development in Africa, and isn't that what the current administration wants.

Posted by: Helen Bushnell on 01/20/06 at 11:43 PM

Laura's attitudes and outlook matches her husbands. If she had any intelligence she wouldn't be married to a dumbbell. If she knew he was a dumbell and she married him anyway, she did it for the money. That makes her a what ?

Posted by: Don Phelps on 01/21/06 at 3:09 PM

It is most unfortunate that equality between women and men is still a f-a-r, f-a-r d-r-e-a-m. Listening to radio programs about styles of sexual activity between adolescents is the worst nightmare/horror show i have ever heard. I thought it was difficult enuf between adults. Kids...i am in total dismay. And popular music bang glorifies the current escalating downward vogue. I really fear for all the girls and women of the world. We are born into a War that allows us our intelligence as our sole weapon. Dim sisters have no chance whatever. Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Posted by: Judy Emerson on 01/21/06 at 3:09 PM

What would Laura "Stepford" Bush know about sex?

Posted by: Kathy Haff Lineker on 01/25/06 at 3:50 PM

The Bush "family" pretends to care for the the have nots of the world but in reality the whole family is "clueless"
This is a heartless uncaring group with no human morals, whose track record spans back to the Nazis. Therefore, why would the people of New Orleans or Africa be shocked by any statement made by one of them.

Posted by: Hattie Keyes Gipson on 01/30/06 at 5:20 AM

Nice layout. But i didnt find information for me that i try to find on your website. But thanks you in any way!

Posted by: Raznoe on 09/20/06 at 1:15 PM

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