Fighting AIDS Right

IN his State of the Union address, President Bush asked Congress “to commit $15 billion over the next five years … to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.” It was a dramatic moment, and not just because few in Washington had predicted that Bush would make AIDS a major topic of his speech. Bush was also proposing a sharp break with previous efforts against AIDS. But many of the biggest admirers of the president’s new approach now fear that its promise is being lost in the legislative grinder.

The Bush administration wanted to adopt what has been called the “Uganda model.” Instead of focusing exclusively on the encouragement of condom use, Uganda and a few other countries have emphasized abstinence and monogamy. As Rod Dreher has reported in these pages (“Death in Africa,” Feb. 10), that approach has dramatically reduced the spread of the disease. Respected academics who are not themselves social conservatives believe that this success could be replicated in other afflicted countries. If so, it would be compassionate conservatism at its best.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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IN his State of the Union address, President Bush asked Congress “to commit $15 billion over the next five years … to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.” It was a dramatic moment, and not just because few in Washington had predicted that Bush would make AIDS a major topic of his speech. Bush was also proposing a sharp break with previous efforts against AIDS. But many of the biggest admirers of the president’s new approach now fear that its promise is being lost in the legislative grinder.

The Bush administration wanted to adopt what has been called the “Uganda model.” Instead of focusing exclusively on the encouragement of condom use, Uganda and a few other countries have emphasized abstinence and monogamy. As Rod Dreher has reported in these pages (“Death in Africa,” Feb. 10), that approach has dramatically reduced the spread of the disease. Respected academics who are not themselves social conservatives believe that this success could be replicated in other afflicted countries. If so, it would be compassionate conservatism at its best.