Washington, DC — President George W. Bush Tuesday asked the Congress to hurry up and pass a five-year US$15bn initiative to combat HIV/Aids. "Time is not on our side, so I ask Congress to move forward with the speed this crisis requires," Bush said, speaking in the White House East Room to an audience that numbered more than a hundred.
Congress has been disputing whether language encouraging sexual abstinence and discouraging abortion should be included in Anti-Aids legislation coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives later this week. Conservative Republicans who usually line up with the President, have been insisting on such language.
Bush did not speak directly to this issue, emphasizing, instead, the impact of the Aids pandemic. "Today on the continent of Africa alone, nearly 30 million people are living with HIV/Aids, including 3 million people under the age of 15 years old," the president said.
Earlier Tuesday, briefing reporters, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer praised Uganda "as a great role model. It provides a focus on abstinence. Then it recognizes that, alone, is not the only answer."
More specifically, Fleischer later indicated in carefully chosen words that groups that provide abortions will still be eligible for the new Aids money as along as they don't use that money for abortions. "Any organization that wants to participate in the treatment, care, and prevention of HIV/Aids under the President's emergency relief plan will be eligible, provided they do not use the funds to promote or perform abortions," said Fleischer.
Although the White House says that President Bush wants "prevention education rooted in the proven abstinence-based approach," the bill accepted by the House International Relations Committee rejected an amendment giving priority to the promotion of sexual abstinence and monogamy. The committee's chair who shepherded the bill, Henry Hyde (R-IL), sat on the stage with Bush.
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"There are only two possible responses to suffering on this scale," Bush said. "We can turn our eyes away in resignation and despair, or we can take decisive, historic action to turn the tide against this disease..."
Bush said he hopes to have legislation on his desk to sign by Memorial Day (May 30).
The bill is set for a vote in the House of Representatives Thursday and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to take up similar legislation next week. Hopes of a final vote on the legislation sometime next month are realistic, say administration officials.
Full text of statement: Remarks by the President on Global HIV/AIDS Initiative
