Reuters
Bun Rany Hun Sen, president of the Cambodia Red Cross and wife of Cambodia's Prime Minister, comforts an HIV-positive orphan at a hospital in Phnom Penh, on December 1.
The following is an excerpt from a speech by United States Senator Barack Obama (Democrat-Illinois) delivered on World AIDS Day, December 1, at the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at the Saddleback Church Campus, Lake Forest, California.
AIDS is a story often told by numbers - 40 million infected with HIV, nearly 4.5 million this year alone. Twelve million orphans in Africa; 8,000 deaths and 6,000 new infections every single day.
In some places, 90 per cent of those with HIV do not know they have it. And we just learned that AIDS is set to become the third leading cause of death worldwide in the coming years.
They are staggering, these numbers, and they help us understand the magnitude of this pandemic. But when repeated by themselves - statistics can also numb - they can hide the individual stories and tragedies and hopes of those who live the daily drama of this disease.
We are all sick because of AIDS - and we are all tested by this crisis. It is a test not only of our willingness to respond, but of our ability to look past the artificial divisions and debates that have often shaped that response. When you go to places like Africa and you see this problem up close, you realise that it's not a question of either treatment or prevention - or even what kind of prevention - it is all of the above. It is not an issue of either science or values - it is both. Yes, there must be more money spent on this disease. But there must also be a change in hearts and minds; in cultures and attitudes. Neither philanthropist nor scientist; neither government nor church, can solve this problem on their own - AIDS must be an all-hands-on-deck effort.
If we hope to win this fight, we must stop new infections - we must do what we can to prevent people from contracting HIV in the first place.
Now, too often, the issue of prevention has been framed in either/or terms. For some, the only way to prevent the disease is for men and women to change their sexual behaviour - in particular, to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage. For others, such a prescription is unrealistic; they argue that we need to provide people with the tools they need to protect themselves from the virus, regardless of their sexual practices - in particular, by increasing the use of condoms, as well as by developing new methods, like microbicides, that women can initiate themselves to prevent transmission during sex. And in the debate surrounding how we should tackle the scourge of AIDS, we often see each side questioning the other's motives, and thereby impeding progress
For me, this is a false argument. I don't think we can deny that there is a moral and spiritual component to prevention - that in too many places all over the world where AIDS is prevalent - including our own country, by the way the relationship between men and women, between sexuality and spirituality, has broken down, and needs to be repaired.
These are issues of prevention we cannot walk away from. When a husband thinks it's acceptable to hide his infidelity from his wife, it's not only a sin, it's a potential death sentence. And when rape is still seen as a woman's fault and a woman's shame, but promiscuity is a man's prerogative, it is a problem of the heart that no government can solve. It is, however, a place where local ministries and churches like Saddleback can, and have, made a real difference - by providing people with a moral framework to make better choices.
I also believe that we cannot ignore that abstinence and fidelity may too often be the ideal and not the reality - that we are dealing with flesh and blood men and women and not abstractions - and that if condoms and potentially microbicides can prevent millions of deaths, they should be made more widely available.
I know that there are those who, out of sincere religious conviction, oppose such measures. And with these folks, I must, respectfully but unequivo-cally, disagree. I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence. Nor am I willing to stand by and allow those who are entirely innocent - wives who, because of the culture they live in, often have no power to refuse sex with their husbands, or children who are born with the infection as a consequence of their parent's behaviour - to suffer when condoms or other measures would have kept them from harm.
Another area where we can make significant progress in prevention is by removing the stigma that goes along with getting tested for HIV-AIDS. The idea that in some places, nine in 10 people with HIV have no idea they're infected is more than frightening - it's a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
Of course, even as we work diligently to slow the rate of new infection, we also have a responsibility to treat the 40 million people who are already living with HIV.
We should never forget that God granted us the power to reason so that we would do His work here on Earth - so that we would use science to cure disease, and heal the sick, and save lives. And one of the miracles to come out of the AIDS pandemic is that scientists have discovered medicine that can give people with HIV a new chance at life.
Leading cause of death
And even as we focus on the enormous crisis in Africa, we need to remember that the problem is not in Africa alone. In the last few years, we have seen an alarming rise in infection rates in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. Right here in the United States, AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25-34, and we are also seeing many poorer and rural communities fail to get the resources they need to deal with their vulnerable populations.
Through our country's emergency plan for AIDS relief, the U.S. will have contributed more than $15 billion over five years to combat HIV/AIDS overseas. And the Global Fund, with money from the U.S. and other countries, has done some heroic work to fight this disease.
Of course, given all the strains that have been placed on the U.S. budget, and given the extraordinary needs that we face here at home, it may be hard to find the money. But I believe we must try. I believe it will prove to be a wise investment. The list of reasons for us to care about AIDS is long. In an interconnected, globalised world, the ability of pandemics to spread to other countries and continents has never been easier or faster than it is today.
But the reason for us to step up our efforts can't simply be instrumental. There are more fundamental reasons to care. Reasons related to our own humanity. Reasons of the soul.
In someone else's shoes
Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathise with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say 'This is your fault. You have sinned.' I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.
My Bible tells me that when God sent his only Son to Earth, it was to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and redeem those who strayed from righteousness.
Living His example is the hardest kind of faith - but it is surely the most rewarding. It is a way of life that can not only light our way as people of faith, but guide us to a new and better politics as Americans.
