AIDS and abstinence

The controversy over the best way to prevent the spread of AIDS has been going on for more than two decades now. Ought people to be taught the virtues of abstinence or should we assume that they will not abstain from sexual relations and urge the use of condoms instead? The Bush administration argues for the former alternative, and he has the President of Uganda on side. But not everyone agrees:

U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to attend the week-long meeting, accused the Bush administration of using ideology, not science, to dictate policy.

She said the U.S. AIDS initiative required that one third of all HIV prevention funding go to "abstinence until marriage" programmes.

"In an age where five million people are newly infected each year and women and girls too often do not have the choice to abstain, an abstinence until marriage programme is not only irresponsible, it's really inhumane," Lee said.

"Abstaining from sex is oftentimes not a choice, and therefore their only hope in preventing HIV infection is the use of condoms," she added.

Congresswoman Lee's argument has a rather obvious flaw. She appears to assume, not only that women and girls are often victims of unwanted sexual intercourse (which may indeed be so), but that men will do what they wish anyway, irrespective of any official advice to abstain. Yet if this is the case, why does she think that men will be persuaded to use condoms, if they cannot even be trusted to avoid nonconsensual sexual relations?