New Video Highlights the Truth about Global Development Aid

To mark World AIDS Day 2013, Catholics for Choice is releasing a short movie that highlights the dark side of development aid. Faith-based organizations—particularly Catholic agencies, which the Vatican claims provide 30 percent of AIDS care in Africa and 25 percent of AIDS care globally—take taxpayer money to provide healthcare services to the neediest communities throughout the world, but sometimes pick and choose who to help and which services to offer.

Citing “religious freedom,” Catholic bishops have lobbied successfully to remove family planning from PEPFAR, a massive international program to prevent the spread of HIV, even though family planning has been proven to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. At the UN, the Vatican continues to lobby against other proven HIV prevention strategies, including condom use and sexuality education. Faith-based organizations may also choose to discriminate against certain people—like gay men, or sex workers, people that use drugs, or even those who engage sex outside of marriage.

A new short film explains how faith-based healthcare providers throughout the world impact the spread of HIV & AIDS.

“Faith-based healthcare providers should provide healthcare, not dogma,” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice. “People should receive the care they need, not what the Vatican decides they need.”

Watch the video calling for change in these discriminatory practices and learn more about the issue in this report.

###