PEPFAR Renewal Advances in US Senate

CONTACT:

Serra Sippel, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), 301.270.1182, mob: 301.768.7162

WASHINGTON, March 13 – Family planning seems likely to return to center stage in the U.S. congressional debate over US$50 billion in AIDS funding, which today won approval by the key Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The 21-to-3 vote to renew the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for five years came after negotiators agreed to delete and let the full Senate decide on several controversial provisions approved by the House. Those included one that would have expanded the ability of overseas family planning organizations to offer AIDS services. “I am disappointed that the bill before us today does not acknowledge the important links between family planning and global AIDS programs,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

The measure also retained House-passed requirements that funded organizations pledge opposition to prostitution and that the Global AIDS Coordinator report to Congress if funding for abstinence and fidelity education falls below half of all prevention funding in countries with generalized AIDS epidemics.

Serra Sippel, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), condemned the changes, saying her nonprofit group had “hoped the Senate would be more resistant to political pressure.” The reporting requirement “continues the legacy” of earlier higher earmarks for abstinence-only programs, she said.

Before supporting the final bill, Boxer won assurance from one of its cosponsors, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), that it would still allow family planning groups offering AIDS prevention and treatment services to remain exempt from the so-called “global gag rule,” also known as the Mexico City policy. That policy bars U.S. funds for groups that offer counseling or advocacy on abortion services.

Another provision introduced by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) would lift the ban on entry to the United States for people infected with HIV. Enacted in 1987, the ban was reinstated in 1993.

In its first five years, PEPFAR has provided 1.4 million people with AIDS treatment drugs in 15 countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and another 6.6 million have received care, according to Bush administration figures.

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