SEMINARIANS FOR LIFE INTERNATIONALTM
FACT SHEET - AIDS and the Big Lie About Condoms

By Joseph Meaney
HLI Director of International Coordination



The issue of condoms has become ideologically charged in recent years. A good example of this is the August 2004 statement by Timothy Wirth, president of Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation. Mr. Wirth states, “The United States and others have started questioning the efficacy of condoms. To condemn women by indifference to science and by failure to provide tools for their own protection may not meet the technical definition of crimes against humanity, but it is certainly gross negligence toward humanity.” In point of fact, he and all others who promote condoms are the ones who will face the verdict of history as having done a grave wrong to humanity.

It is an undeniable fact that AIDS cannot be transmitted sexually if a person remains chaste before marriage, marries a virgin, and stays monogamous during marriage. All reasonable scientists must admit this fact. It is clear that those who follow the Church’s teaching on sexual morality have almost no chance of getting sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. Promoters of condoms and “Safe Sex” are nonetheless desperate to find some way to prevent these diseases, while also permitting sexual promiscuity to continue on a vast scale.

Clearly, no one would be comfortable promoting an airline that had major safety failures on 10 percent of its flights resulting in the death of passengers. Condoms, however, have a far worse protection record against such fatal diseases as AIDS. Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau, a medical doctor and official of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has written an excellent article on why the condom is unacceptable on scientific and moral grounds. He cites studies showing that condoms have failure rates in preventing pregnancy, averaging 15 percent. This failure rate is scary considering the human sperm is much larger than the HIV virus. Further, researchers R. Gordon and S.C. Weller found condom failure rates as high as 23 and 31 percent respectively. It is a tragedy that many AIDS prevention programs today provide a false sense of security to those most vulnerable.

When reasonable people advocate the Church’s age-old message of chastity, the immediate rejoinder from the condom promoters is that such ideas are completely unrealistic and old-fashioned. Condom promoters combine a radical contempt for human self-control with a lack of elementary psychological insight. People can control their free will. Vigorously promoting chastity has shown concrete positive results. Uganda is an example of this. The Ugandan government reduced AIDS prevalence rates greatly by heavily campaigning for abstinence and fidelity. In the United States, also, we have seen lower rates of teenage promiscuity and pregnancy due to abstinence education.

The condom is an immoral and scientifically flawed instrument. The failure rate of condoms is such that not even a rational pagan should find them acceptable. We must continue to proclaim the truth that only chastity and fidelity can be successful in the fight against AIDS.

Quoted in “Friday Fax,” Catholic Family and Human Rights Association (C-FAM), September 3, 2004, Volume 7, Number 37. This can be viewed on the C-FAM website at: <www.c-fam.org>.
J. Suaudeau, “Sesso Sicuro,” Lexicon of ambiguous and debatable terms regarding family life and ethical questions, Pontifical Council for the Family, (EDB, Bologna 2003), p. 795-817.
Ibid. p. 803.
Ibid. p. 812-13. S.C. Weller’s meta-analysis of eleven publications shows failure rates of 31 percent.
See Sarah Trafford, “Uganda Winning the Battle Against AIDS — Using Abstinence” retrieved on Sept 7, 2004, from <www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0074.html > and Trevor Summers, “Why are we not being told the truth,” Christian Media Fellowship 2001 retrieved Sept 7, 2004 from <www.cmf.org.uk/index.htm?helix/spr03/abstain.htm>. Originally published in Triple Helix, Spring 2001, p. 10-11.

Human Life International Inc.® © 2004