Sex and AIDS — Life and Death

It’s a pretty sorry state when we can be encouraged that “only” 29% of the pregnant women on one's country are HIV positive. But that’s the news today out of South Africa.

How many Americans could confront walking down a street in Johannesburg today, knowing that 3 out of every 10 pregnant women we see are living under a death sentence and passing it on to their unborn children.

As reported in 2005 almost half of the 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa lost their parents to AIDS.

The people of the African continent, living under the thread to AIDS have the lowest life expectancy on Earth.

Obviously, sexual abstinence is the most effective preventative measure for sexually transmitted HIV, but what will it take to shift sexual mores to such a degree that we can make a dent in the problem?

Last month a new set of video clips that are public service announcements were released at an international Scientology event in Clearwater Florida by David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center. (Mr. Miscavige is the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion).

These video clips illustrate the 21 precepts of The Way to Happiness, which is a common sense moral code, not restricted to any one religious belief, written by L. Ron Hubbard.

One of these clips illustrates the precept “Don’t be promiscuous.”

The video itself is a very funny representation of the personal backlash one can experience from violating this precept. It doesn't get into the question of sexually transmitted disease, but rather into the painful repercussions when the person you cheated on finds out. But its humor could be the very thing to use this as the opener for educating youth on sexual faithfulness being the most effective personal answer and social remedy for the AIDS pandemic.

This is not an advocacy against other campaigns to reduce the spread of AIDS through distribution of condoms. Whatever it takes to save lives, we need to do it. But this is one method that's foolproof, and it's easy for anyone to participate and spread the word.

Here's the video clip. It's less than a minute. Take the time to enjoy it. Then copy it onto your blog and spread the word.

Click here to view other Public Service Announcements

It is ironic that L. Ron Hubbard wrote The Way To Happiness in 1981, the year that the first cases of this new disease were reported, and a full year before scientists had given it a name. In this book, Mr. Hubbard wrote: “Unfaithfulness on the part of a sexual partner can heavily reduce one’s survival,“ and he goes on to say, “For a very brief period, it was said that sexual diseases were all under control. This is not now the case, if it ever was. Incurable strains of such diseases now exist,” and “The urge of the moment can become the sorrow of a lifetime.”

If this one precept were really implemented, we could cut back the spread of HIV/AIDS enormously in one generation.