UN Calls for Closer Links Between AIDS Prevention Programs and Abortion

By C-FAM Staff | 2005

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Yesterday the UN wrapped up a high-level conference to evaluate the progress achieved in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS since the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. While the UN acknowledged a failure to make significant progress and admitted that it was unlikely to reach its original goal of containing the disease by 2015, the blame was apportioned to insufficient funding rather than ineffective strategies. The UN called for more financial support for its current strategies, including the integration of HIV/AIDS prevention programs and "reproductive health services," which in UN speak include abortion.

     The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted that HIV/AIDS is still expanding at an accelerating rate, and last year saw more new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths than ever before. There are now 39.4 million people worldwide living with HIV. The hardest-hit region continues to be sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 64 percent of all HIV infections. In Swaziland, the most affected country, 42.6 percent of pregnant women tested HIV-positive last year.

     Jean Ping, the President of the General Assembly, also stated that the threat of HIV/AIDS today is far greater than four years ago. By the end of 2006, 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to lose more than 10 percent of their workforce due to AIDS.

     Speakers focused on the shortfall of funding for current efforts rather than questioning the effectiveness of current UN strategies to battle HIV/AIDS. Peter Piot, the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), claimed that UN programs would succeed if the current amount of funding were doubled from $8 billion to $14-16 billion annually.

     Access to conference proceedings was mostly restricted, and the final recommendations were not made public but were summarized at the closing session by Jean Ping, the President of the General Assembly. However, the proceedings merely reaffirmed the need for a scaling-up of current UN efforts, rather than recommending new strategies.

     The preparatory document on HIV/AIDS prevention stressed the need for "linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS." According to Ping, the actual discussion recommended the breaking down of "taboos" regarding sexuality and high-risk behavior, and called for a closer link between "sex, hygiene and procreation" programs and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

     Among the papers circulated at the conference was the Stockholm Call for Action, a radical manifesto created on April 12 at a conference sponsored by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Government of Sweden. This Call declares that "access to reproductive and sexual health information and services is integral to efforts to curb the HIV/AIDS epidemic" asks for young people to have "access to gender-sensitive reproductive and sexual health . . . education and services," and supports the inclusion of "universal access to reproductive health by 2015 as a target for MDG 5" at September's Summit at the UN on the Millennium Development Goals, the UN's current major initiative.

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