Condoms – male and female – are currently the only technology available for protection from the sexual transmission of HIV between partners. Yet, the need for condoms is much greater than the availability. An estimated 8 billion condoms were needed in 2000 to ensure access needed to reduce the rate of infection, however, donors provided just 950 million that year. By 2015, it is estimated that 18.6 billion condoms will be needed – so it is hard to believe that the United States is flooding countries with unwanted or unneeded condoms.

The current U.S. global HIV/AIDS program – PEPFAR – invests more intellectually, rhetorically and financially in abstinence until marriage programs than in a balanced approach that also addresses the needs of sexually active people.

The Administration has determined that of all HIV/AIDS prevention funds, 50% should be spent on addressing sexual transmission of HIV and 50% for preventing parent to child transmission and blood safety. Of the 50% for sexual transmission, 66% of the funds are targeted for abstinence until marriage programs and efforts to tell people to be faithful to their partner.

The United States has a narrow view of the role condoms should play in preventing transmission of HIV, structuring its efforts to provide condoms only for high-risk populations, ignoring that there is a crossover between high-risk population and the general public.

In Uganda, for example, the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator determined that the total number of condoms that may be procured through U.S. funding is limited to the number that will cover only those in their definition of “high-risk” groups and are to be distributed in only limited areas, rather than supplementing the supply available to the general population for HIV prevention.

Despite a growing need for condoms – as birth control and HIV prevention – the US investment in these services has basically been stagnant over the past 10 years.

USAID, along with CDC, has censored information about condom effectiveness on its website.

USAID has even published a piece from the conservative Washington Times on its website that highlights the shift away from condoms toward a policy that downplays condom distribution.

The number of teenage pregnancies has continued to drop over the past 10 years as contraceptive knowledge and prevalence has increased.

The AMA supports condom use for the prevention of HIV infection and other STIs.

The ACOG supports the use of IUDs as safe and effective birth control.

The FDA says condoms could save your life, and advocates their use in preventing STIs and pregnancy.

After years of claims that condoms do not protect against HPV, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine proves that condoms are very helpful for preventing it.

Condom availability contributed directly to a decrease in sexualy activity among teens in several studies.

At Cairo in 1994, the Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), section 8.25, declares that abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning. This agreement also indicates that policymaking on matters such as abortion are the sovereign right of each nation – there is no internationally-agreed right to abortion. The document has a clear definition of reproductive health.

UNFPA, the leading multilateral agency encouraging universal access to reproductive health services, does not support or promote abortion. In June 1985, UNFPA adopted and remains guided by decision 85/19 which states that: "It is the policy of the Fund not to provide assistance for abortion, abortion services or abortion-related equipment and supplies as a method of family planning."

Most advocates of reproductive health information and services point both to research and to common sense to show it reduces the need for abortion. Click to see articulations of this thinking by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid of UNFPA, Family Health International, & the Guttmacher Institute.

Evidence clearly supports this thinking. For example, over half of the unintended pregnancies in the United States occur in women who are not using contraception, and half of all unintended pregnancies end in abortion in the US—nearly ¼ of all pregnancies. This suggests that increasing access to reproductive health information and services will decrease the number of abortions.

Relevant Links:

Study from NIH website demonstrates that reduction in abortion is statistically tied to increased contraception use.

Interesting Parallel: Bush, anti-choice movement using Dred Scott as “code” against choice movement.

Study from British Medical Journal, 7/2005: “Making emergency hormonal contraception available over the counter does not seem to have led to an increase in its use, to an increase in unprotected sex, or to a decrease in the use of more reliable methods of contraception.”

Studies of women in their teens revealed that there was no difference in sexual behaviors between those who had advance access to EC and their peers who did not, there was no difference in their use of other contraception techniques besides EC, and most importantly, there was no increase in unprotected sex.

Additionally, there are studies that show that young women who are better educated about contraception delay the onset of sexual activities until later in life—decreasing promiscuity—and are better at using contraception when they do become sexually active.

It is believed that various birth control methods - including the pill - can work by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. For all contraceptives, this is at most a tertiary function. Implantation is the critical first step in pregnancy, and is recognized by scientific organizations like National Institutes of Health (NIH), American College of Gynecologist (ACOG), American Medical Association (AMA), British Medical Association (BMA) and others as the scientific definition for the beginning of a pregnancy. Therefore, the prevention of implantation comes before the start of a pregnancy and cannot be considered an abortion.

Because these contraceptive methods work prior to implantation, they have been an accepted and widely used means of pregnancy prevention for decades and are widely accepted in the medical and scientific community as a safe and effective means of contraception.

Emergency contraception (EC) works in a very similar way. According to the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), EC works by preventing ovulation (first), fertilization (second), and implantation (third). "They are not abortifacients. They will not interrupt or harm an established pregnancy." This is the case for all contraceptives.

The prevailing medical professional association-the American Medical Association-debated the subject and rejected the idea that these birth control methods are abortifacients after finding no evidence to support the claim. ("Recent Activities: 2001") Additionally, they also endorse EC as a method of contraception.

A World Health Organization report and its guidelines for EC state that a levonorgestrel-only pill has no effect on the endometrium following ovulation, suggesting that it would never work to prevent implantation-the fundamental theory that EC opponents rely on for their argument

American Reproductive Health Professionals: With one-half of U.S. pregnancies resulting from contraception failure, there is a huge space for emergency contraception to be used in preventing unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions. An increase in its availability and use of EC would almost certainly mean fewer abortions, a purported aim of those opposed to its use.

Relevant Links:

Report by American Academy of Family Physicians (AmFam) on Plan B

Report by AmFam suggesting Plan B could reduce abortions

NFPRHA fact sheet on EC

American Academy of Pediatrics Approves EC

Most current fact sheet on EC from Kaiser Family Foundation