Laura Bush Promotes ‘Safe Sex’ Myth to Americans

The following are excerpts from a December 13, 2007 article appearing on CNSNews.com.

“First Lady Laura Bush Advocates ‘Safe Sex,’ Condoms”
By Pete Winn, CNSNews.com – December 13, 2007

In a Dec. 1 op-ed in the Washington Post, First Lady Laura Bush said Americans need to “practice safe sex,” use condoms “every time,” and get tested for HIV/AIDS. Her spokeswoman repeated the message to Cybercast News Service this week. However, it is a message that is contrary to the Bush administration’s policy position on abstinence education as the best way to fight HIV/AIDS.

In her commentary, “Let’s Unite Against HIV-AIDS,” Mrs. Bush wrote that Americans “should know our HIV status” and provided the Web site to find “the testing center closest to you.”

She went on to write: “Practice Safe Sex. Let’s take a cue from our African counterparts and follow the ABC method of prevention: Abstinence, Be Faithful and the Correct and Consistent Use of Condoms. That means not just occasionally, but every time.”

But the term “safe-sex” has long been a code word for the promotion of condoms as the best approach to solving the AIDS crisis. Is that what Mrs. Bush meant by the comment? Cybercast News Service posed the question to the White House.

“I think the op-ed speaks for itself,” the first lady’s press secretary, Sally McDonough, told Cybercast News Service. “Mrs. Bush is and has been a proponent of the ABC program, which is clearly making a difference across the globe.

“Part of ABC is the correct and consistent use of condoms, and she writes that. She goes on to explain that to mean not just occasionally, but every time,” McDonough added.

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http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200712/CUL20071213a.html