I thought I’d written my last post about the failures of Congress to adequately address the need of women’s reproductive health during the debate of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

President Bush signed the bill yesterday, the deal is done. Why write more?

But today, in The Hill’s Congress Blog, I read something that is worthy of comment.

Given all that people who watch sexual and reproductive health issues closely know about the PEPFAR negotiations during the past few months, and that we’ve written about on this site, this, from Paul Zeitz at the Global AIDS Alliance, is noteworthy;

The bill’s originators had to cope with myths and half-truths from
opponents that several times threatened to derail the entire bill. For instance, in the House, some members, like Rep. Chris Smith,
Rep. Mike Pence and others, claimed that a provision to facilitate
family planning services for HIV positive women would lead to US
financing of abortion, even though such financing is already prohibited
by US law.

In fact, many HIV-positive women are taking AIDS medications that can cause birth defects and they, and other women, need the option of using
contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. This argument was not good enough
for Smith or the Catholic Church.

In the end, the provision had to be
dropped for the bill to have more than token Republican support, and in
fact the version signed into law avoids the issue of family planning
altogether.

 

I will let the words of "the bill’s originator", for whom the bill was named, the late Rep. Tom Lantos, speak for himself;

Henry [Hyde], God rest his soul, joined me and many of our colleagues
five years ago in ensuring that a bipartisan bill became law by
creating a $15 billion program that has saved countless lives in some
of the poorest countries in the world. That legislation included
compromises on issues important to those of us who were then in the
minority. It is a shame that the current minority is failing to honor
this spirit of compromise and is willing to endanger a valuable U.S.
foreign policy program addressing one of the most serious health care
challenges that humanity faces today.

Facts are driving the reauthorization of the Global HIV/AIDS program,
not ideology. The draft global HIV/AIDS reauthorization bill actually
supports and increases the number or references to abstinence and
faithfulness education as part of the integrated ‘ABC’ prevention
approach. Yes, it removes the 1/3 abstinence-only earmark, which was
included in the 2003 law over strong Democratic objections, because
that restriction has proven to be hampering the effectiveness of
programs in the field.

 

Facts:

• Rep. Tom Lantos was ready to lead on this effort and fight for what was right for women, and against failed abstinence-only programs. That was evident in the draft bill before Rep. Lantos died.
• Some advocacy organizations chose to play politics with social conservatives before the House Committe ever marked up the bill.
• Sexual and reproductive health advocates were told by "allies" at every turn not to be too aggressive with their issues, that it would jeopardize the bill by angering social conservatives.
• Sources on the Hill confirmed throughout the process that some advocates were willing to compromise on women’s issues and abstinence, unwilling to fight with the Democratic Majority as Lantos indicated in the release quoted above, as Rep. Henry Hyde did with a Republican Majority in 2003.
• Social conservatives used false issues, like abortion, as Zeitz indicates in his article, to manipulate organizations that should have known better into giving more at the negotiating table early on than they had to.
• The deals were done on the most sensitive issues early, not dropped "in the end" as Zeitz suggests.
• Complicity isn’t pretty and spin after the fact doesn’t work.

Do the advocates that compromised on these issues work very hard for women with HIV? Absolutely. That’s why the drum we consistently beat on this site is that they know better and should have the courage of their convctions, their experience with PEPFAR, and the support of mounds of evidence that suggested ways to improve the bill.

Two more facts the "negotiations" resulted in,

• more, not less, abstinence-only earmarks

• more, not less, stereotyping of reproductive health issues as being about abortion only, thus jeopardizing the real lives of women.