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Advocacy Blog
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
PEPFAR Reauthorization Bill Includes Pledge Requirement for HIV/AIDS Grantees
A mark up hearing was held today (February 27) on a compromise bill introduced this morning, the Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008, that will expand upon the law passed in 2003. The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act (PL 108-25) prohibits grants to any group that "does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking."
CQ ($$) reports that a "Democratic draft that had been circulating for nearly a month threatened to raise a longstanding social-policy feud, with Bush's global AIDS plan — one of his few overseas initiatives to win broad bipartisan support — hanging in the balance. It pitted Democrats pushing to get rid of the abstinence-only requirements and family planning restrictions against Republicans who say the changes would funnel money to abortionists overseas." The draft bill eliminated the anti-prostitution requirement.
Unfortunately, the compromise HR 5501, that passed out of committee maintains the requirement that groups receiving grant money have a specific policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking. Such a pledge gives the government the right to dictate the speech and activities it does not fund.
Posted by Amanda Adams
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