Aids will not be stopped without contraception

In the fight against Aids, the Spanish writer Julián Marías says that “the main cause of this disease is the lack of sex life rules, which help the people to behave in a humane manner.”

Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi declared Aids a national disaster in November 1999, while adding that it would be improper to encourage the use of condoms. By the year 2000, at least 760,000 Kenyans had died of the disease.

Niger and Guatemala are other countries where campaigns against Aids were launched, emphasising marital fidelity.

In the US, the New Jersey Senate passed the AIDS Prevention Act of 1992 to require that sex education courses in New Jersey schools teach students that abstaining from sex is the best way to prevent Aids, other STDs and pregnancy.

Gary L. Bauer, president of the Family Research Council in New York, asserts that “the programmes promoting abstinence mean that we have faith in the young, while the contraceptive programmes mean that we expect the worst.”

In 1999, China’s government banned advertising of condoms.

The virus of death has not been stopped and, according to the journal Nature Medicine, Aids affects more than 33 million people worldwide.

Clemente Ferrer

Madrid

Spain