Rightwing Creeps Gonna Let Real Moms, Babies Die Of AIDS To Stop Imaginary Abortions
These freaks want to undo the only good thing George W. Bush ever did.
Rightwing Republicans’ drive to insert the war against abortion into every bit of US policy is likely to lead to increased illness and death in poor countries, because some on the Right have decided not to fund America’s hugely successful international program to prevent HIV and AIDS unless it includes explicit bans on funding for abortions — even though the program already doesn’t pay for any abortions.
At risk is the one decent thing George W. Bush ever did while he was president, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which since it was initiated in 2003 has been credited with more saving than 25 million lives. As the Washington Post details (gift link), the program has done a heckuva job in battling HIV/AIDS around the world:
PEPFAR has spent in excess of $100 billion across more than 50 countries; distributed millions of courses of medicine to treat and prevent HIV; collected data that shed new light on the virus’s spread; and forged durable partnerships with local governments and organizations.
Experts have credited PEPFAR for helping stabilize health systems in regions including sub-Saharan Africa, which was devastated by the spread of HIV in the 1990s, and for building global capacity for future crises.
Well, that’s nice and all, but earlier this year, a Heritage Foundation report claimed that some groups that have received PEPFAR funding for HIV/AIDS prevention have also separately supported access to abortion — not with PEPFAR funding, but with other money. (In some cases, groups getting PEPFAR funds were accused simply of saying they supported access to abortion, or of calling the Dobbs decision a bad thing.)
In 2021, President Joe Biden reversed a Donald Trump executive order banning PEPFAR-funded groups from using separate funding for abortions, or even telling patients that abortion is an option.
That led Rep. Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey), who was previously a big supporter of PEPFAR, to claim that Joe Biden is now secretly using US foreign aid to push abortion (he isn’t) and to oppose any funding for PEPFAR unless the Trump restrictions are reimposed.
Instead of another five-year extension of PEPFAR funding like Congress has done three times since it first passed, rightwing Republicans want only a one-year extension, with an explicit ban on groups using separate funding for abortions or even telling patients that they’re an option. That way maybe a Republican president can ban abortion worldwide after the next election, or at least demand the restrictions on PEPFAR be made permanent.
Or maybe PEPFAR can get no funding at all; Smith is fine with that, too, explaining to Politico that international health groups will still have some funding left from other sources, probably. Smith thinks that’s a real bang-up way to dissuade fellow Republicans from funding PEPFAR out of some sentimental attachment to how the program has saved tens of millions of lives.
“That’s the gee-whiz moment that’s happening when I have conversations with people who do believe in the sanctity of life,” Smith said. “I’m encouraged that within two or three minutes of a conversation people would say, ‘That’s not what we signed up for. We signed up to go after HIV and AIDS aggressively and effectively, not to have a diversion of priority to abortion on demand.’”
Which, of course, is not happening anyway, but saying it is sure does get the forced birth folks pumped up, to the point that they’re willing to let funding for HIV/AIDS prevention wither. If PEPFAR funding isn’t renewed by September 31, that’s likely to be the result — and with Republicans already itching for a government shutdown, the HIV/AIDS funding gets wrapped up in that mess, too. Disrupting PEPFAR funding would even mean cuts to parts of the program that Republicans have fought for, like funding for children orphaned by AIDS, and aid to help other vulnerable kids.
It’s all for the sake of the babies, unless you mean the babies in developing nations who might now be exposed to HIV in the womb if PEPFAR is defunded. Those babies shouldn’t have voted for Joe Biden. Thank goodness Rs are dropping that “pro-life” label anyway.
Supporters of PEPFAR are still hopeful that the program can be reauthorized in time, but it’s looking grim. Bush himself wrote an op-ed for today’s Washington Post making the case for renewing PEPFAR, in which he says, “I believe that every life has dignity and value. I also believe that of those to whom much is given, much is required.” That last is from the Gospel of Luke, for all the good it might do with his party’s current crop of crazies.
On Monday, seven protesters affiliated with HIV/AIDS advocacy groups were arrested after entering the office of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, where they sat down, chanted for him to fund PEPFAR, and were handcuffed and removed after they refused to leave. That led some stupid rightwing blogs to complain that when leftists stage an “insurrection” by disrupting a congressional office, the lamestream media doesn’t even care, although we should probably note that the Rayburn Office Building was open to the public, the protesters didn’t beat, pepper-spray, or electrocute a single Capitol Police officer, and not a single one of them called for McCarthy or anyone else to be executed. Hurr hurr, they should get 20 years, hurr hurr.
[WaPo (gift link) / Politico / Guardian / Image: Screenshot, George W. Bush Presidential Center on YouTube.
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"If you want our help, you must obey us utterly and completely," is not charity. Nor is it love.
You're just being an authoritarian dickbag who deserves to burn in Hell.
We need to educate the American public about HIV/AIDS again. I ended up in a weird conversation with my mom a couple of days ago. She didn't even know that there are now preventative medications and that people can end up with undetectable viral loads on the right medications.
And she's a college educated woman who consumes (the wrong) news like crazy.
I think it's sort of wandered out of the American consciousness.