PUSH JOURNAL MEDIA SUMMARY

HIV & AIDS

AIDS Bill Gets $50 Billion in Funding: On February 28, several media outlets reported that the House Foreign Affairs Committee had approved $50 billion in funding to fight AIDS over five years through the President’s Plan for Emergency AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). PEPFAR works to prevent and treat the disease in a number of focus countries, primarily in Africa. After a struggle between Republicans and Democrats, the proportion of funding for abstinence-only education was substantially reduced from current levels, but a provision will effectively expand the so-called “global gag rule” to PEPFAR funding. Another provision requires every organization receiving PEPFAR money to adopt a policy against "prostitution and human trafficking." Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) said, "Although in the end we had to compromise on several items that were important to me and many Democratic members, I think this is a good bill and I am pleased to support it." Read: Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly Today, Washington Post

PEPFAR Faced Congressional Hurdles: On February 18 and 20, The Politico and VOA News reported on the debate that would eventually lead to PEPFAR’s renewal. President Bush asked for $30 billion in funding while Democrats wanted $50 billion and removal of the requirement that one-third of allotted funds for AIDS prevention go exclusively to abstinence-only sex education programs. "There are a bunch of divisive issues in the reauthorization about abstinence, reproductive health [and] needle exchange, and there are ongoing debates about whether PEPFAR is too much and too predominant and too exceptional and whether it's crowding out other worthy health and developmental initiatives -- child survival, water, maternal health, family planning," Stephen Morrison. from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA News. Read: The Politico, VOA News

PEPFAR Fails to Slow AIDS Infections: On February 20, The Washington Post reported that after five years of PEPFAR, an estimated 1.7 million new infections still occur in Africa each year. Estimates show that in South Africa, which receives a significant amount of PEPFAR funds, nearly half of all girls under 15 will eventually contract HIV. "They've turned the treatment tide in a fundamental way," said Francois Venter, president of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, referring to the Bush administration. "In terms of prevention, they haven't. . . . It's quite clear that [South Africa's] prevention programs have failed completely." Read: The Washington Post

President Bush Faces Questions on Abstinence-only: On February 22, The New York Times reported that President Bush faced tough questions about PEPFAR’s abstinence-only funding requirements while traveling through Ghana, his fourth stop on a six-day tour through Africa. Ghana receives U.S. funding to fight AIDS but is not one of PEPFAR’s focus countries. Critics have said that PEPFAR takes aid and action away from other diseases. In Ghana, President Bush pledged $350 million over five years for treatment for lesser-known tropical diseases like hookworm, river blindness and snail fever. Read: The New York Times

HIV Gel Trial Stopped: On February 19, the Associated Press reported that the first anti-HIV gel that made it to late-term trials had failed to prevent HIV infection, in part because the 6,000 South African women in the trial had low rates of use. The women said they used the gel less than half the times they had sexual intercourse, which researchers said would skew the data. They will continue to analyze the results to see if the gel had any effect on HIV infection among those who used it regularly. Jeff Spieler of the U.S. Agency for International Development said the trial was still groundbreaking work. "We have always known that the path to developing a successful microbicide would be a long one." Read: Associated Press

 

SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND RIGHTS

Abortion Debate in Italian Election: On February 16, The New York Times reported that abortion has become a hot topic in this year’s April election campaigns. The current controversy began when police, acting on an anonymous tip that an abortion had been performed past legal term limits, entered a hospital, interrogated a woman and took her aborted fetus. Pro-choice advocates took to the streets to protest, including Health Minister Livia Turco. Abortion has been legal in Italy for 30 years. In 2006, the country had 130,000 terminated pregnancies. Read: The New York Times

Church and Doctors Spar Over Abortion: On February 25, Reuters reported that Italy’s Roman Catholic Church had accused the country’s national medical association of playing politics on abortion. The dispute ignited after the association urged doctors to support Italy’s abortion law while also promoting responsible procreation. Later, the Pope repeated his pro-life stance in a message to the country but did not mention the dispute with the medical association. Read: Reuters

Abortion Protests in Madrid: On February 16, the Associated Press reported that hundreds of anti-abortion protestors demonstrated in Madrid against proposed legislation that would strengthen laws protecting the identity of women seeking abortions. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government raised the measure after police raided four clinics and arrested 13 people in November. Abortion has been legal in Spain for 22 years and is allowed in cases of rape, fetal deformation or danger to a pregnant woman's physical or mental health. Ninety percent of Spain’s abortions last year were due to mental distress. Read: Associated Press

Condoms Get a Girl-Friendly Makeover: On February 19, The Times Union (New York) reported that Planned Parenthood is launching a multi-city campaign marketing condoms to women. The condom line, dubbed “Proper Attire,” has fancy names and snazzy packaging to encourage women to take sexual safety into their own hands. "We want to appeal to women so they will be more comfortable purchasing condoms and carrying them and using them," said Blue Carreker, spokeswoman for Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood. For now, the condoms are only available at Planned Parenthood locations, but the organization hopes to sell them publicly by year’s end. Read: The Times Union

French Church Seeks Legal Status for Embryos: On February 19, The Washington Post reported that the French Catholic Church is seeking legal status for embryos following a court decision that will allow parents to register miscarried fetuses in the civil registry. Abortion rights campaigner Marie-Francoise Colombani disagreed with the court decision. "Why don't we give legal status to what develops in a test tube during in vitro fertilization?" she asked. "The law is supposed to be a safeguard, but it has produced sheer folly." Read: Washington Post

U.K. to Examine Sex Education Classes: On February 25, the Press Association Newsfile reported that after new data showed Britain has the highest number of teen pregnancies in Europe, the government will start examining the efficiency of sex education courses in secondary schools. Joshua McTaggart of the UK Youth Parliament said, “The UK Youth Parliament has been pushing for nearly three years to get better-quality sex and relationships education into secondary schools across the UK, and hopefully this review will be the first step in doing that.'' Read: Press Association Newsfile

Teen Abortions High in Scotland: On February 27, The Press Association and the Glasgow Daily Record (Scotland) reported on a new finding that every day in Scotland a teenage girl under 16 has an abortion. There were 13,081 abortions there in 2006, and 3,446 involved women under 20. Health spokeswoman Mary Scanlon said, "Not only is teenage pregnancy a huge issue in Scotland, but unprotected sex brings other serious problems, such as the increase in sexually transmitted diseases.” She added: "The previous government did not do enough to address this issue.” Read: The Press Association, Glasgow Daily Record

 

SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES

Geri Halliwell Speaks Out for Maternal Health: On February 22 and 23, several media outlets reported that Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice of the British pop music group the Spice Girls, had met with members of Congress to call for action on maternal health and AIDS among women. Halliwell is a goodwill ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. When asked about the Bush administrations refusal to fund the UNFPA because of its work in China with the Chinese one-child policy, Halliwell said "I find this absolutely heartbreaking because it was America that started it in the 1960s, that was so forward thinking to set up the UNFPA." Read: U.S. News & World Report, Washington Post, People Magazine

U.N. Launches Campaign to End Violence Against Women: On February 26, several media outlets reported on the U.N. launch of a campaign to fight violence against women. It will be a multi-year initiative to tackle domestic violence, rape and other physical atrocities women face worldwide. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "We know when we work to eradicate violence against women, we empower our greatest resource for development: mothers raising children; law-makers in parliament; chief executives, negotiators, teachers; doctors, policewomen, peacekeepers and more." Read: Islamic Republic News Agency, Associated Press, Agence France Presse, Washington Post

Gender Equality Gets Little Funding: On February 22, Inter Press Service reported that the United Nations held the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in late February to discuss the continuous under-funding of women’s activities worldwide and at the U.N. The CSW drew thousands of participants from governments, civil society and international organizations to discuss violence against women, illiteracy and HIV/AIDS, among other topics. "Despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating that gender equality makes good economic sense, and the calls for gender mainstreaming in economic policies and public finance management, adequate resources have not been systematically allocated," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Read: Inter Press Service

Afghan Women’s Lives Continue to Worsen: On February 25, The Independent (UK) reported on a new report by the organization Womankind, entitled “Afghan Women and Girls Seven Years On,” which found the welfare of women and girls in Afghanistan to be worse now than before the fall of the repressive Taliban regime. It said violence against women, mostly domestic, is at epidemic levels, with 87 percent of women reporting abuse, while over 60 percent of marriages are forced, sometimes on girls as young as ten. Afghanistan also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world: one in every six women will die attempting to give birth. Read: The Independent

Liberian Women Get a Second Chance: On February 26, Agence France Presse reported on a program through a Liberian NGO, Action for Greater Harvest (AGRHA) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), that is giving women survivors of war and violence in Liberia the chance to learn valuable skills to be able to work and support themselves financially. "What we have here is a wonderful opportunity for these young people to become independent and to stand on their own two feet," said a delighted Esther Guluma of UNICEF. "This is a great example of a successful venture for youth employment.” Read: Agence France Presse

 

POPULATION

China Reconsiders One-child Policy: On February 29, several media outlets reported that China is considering revising or eliminating its one-child-per-couple birth control program that has been in place since 1973. China is the world’s most populous nation, home to 1.3 billion people, and has the world’s strictest family planning law. It allows one child for urban couples and two for rural farmers if their first child is a girl. The government is considering abandoning the law due to a rapidly aging population, too few young people to supply the workforce, a worsening gender gap thought to be due in part to sex-selective abortions, and an extremely low birth rate. Read: The New York Times, Guardian Unlimited, Wall Street Journal

Half the World’s Population Will Live in Cities by End of 2008: On February 26, Associated Press and Voice of America (VOA) News reported on newly revised United Nations projections showing that half the world’s population will live in cities by the end of this year. Most of the growth will be in less developed areas; Africa’s urban population will triple over the next three decades and Asia is expected to be half urban as early as 2015. The revised estimates were revealed at a news conference launching the report, “2007 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects.” Hania Zlotnik, head of the U.N. Population Division, said she hoped increasing urbanization "will go hand in hand with economic growth." Read: Associated Press, Voice of America (VOA) News

 

EDITORIALS and COLUMNS: On February 29 The New York Times published an editorial on the global AIDS fight and the new $50 billion AIDS relief bill approved by Congress. Noting many of the pros and cons of the bill, including changes in abstinence-only language and retention of the “global gag rule,” The Times wrote: “The most troublesome ideological constraint on the program — a requirement that one-third of the funds used for prevention services be spent on abstinence education — has been greatly eased. The bill calls for a balanced prevention program that would promote abstinence until marriage and fidelity thereafter, as well as condoms. It requires countries to report if abstinence and fidelity funding falls below a certain percentage, but it sets no firm percentage that has to be met.” Read: The New York Times

On February 22, a Los Angeles Times editorial  outlined the dangers of abstinence-only education promotion in Africa through PEPFAR. In Africa, millions of young women are forced to marry each year, often to men seeking HIV-free wives. Married women have little to no control over their sexual lives and decisions, and contraception is often looked down upon. But advocates argue that contraception and family planning programs are the only way to truly prevent the spread of HIV. “Although some U.S. religious conservatives find contraception objectionable, most Americans do not. Congress should take note and expand funding for family-planning programs to help HIV-positive girls and women.” Read: Los Angeles Times

On February 21, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Paul Clement, a high school science teacher from California, criticizing the paper’s favorable coverage of PEPFAR. Clement aimed to “burst the PEPFAR bubble” by noting the requirement for abstinence and fidelity program funding, and noted that for the first two years, President Bush blocked procurement of most low-cost, generic anti-retroviral drugs in favor of more expensive brand-name drugs. “This is only a taste of the many criticisms of PEPFAR. Not to mention any of them in the article is negligent. PEPFAR has done much good, but it has accomplished only a fraction of its potential.” Read: Los Angeles Times

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The above summary is produced by the Communications Consortium Media Center, 401 Ninth Street, NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20004, 202.326.8700. Redistribution is encouraged with credit to CCMC.

 

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