Condoms don't cause sex any more than umbrellas cause rain

Kristof, in today's NYT, touches on why our administration's program to fight AIDS in Africa is misguided.

President Bush is focusing his program against AIDS in Africa on sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, relegating condoms to a distant third. It's the kind of well-meaning policy that bubbles up out of a White House prayer meeting but that will mean a lot of unnecessary deaths on the ground in Africa.
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The fact is that condoms have played a crucial role in the campaigns against AIDS that have been relatively successful, from Thailand's '100 percent condom program' to the efforts in Uganda, Cambodia and Senegal. And condoms don't cause sex any more than umbrellas cause rain.
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Perhaps the White House thinks it has the moral high ground when it preaches, completely irrelevantly, to women like Mrs. Sibanda about the need to be faithful. But it strikes me as hypocritical to pontificate about virtue while pursuing an ideological squeamishness about condoms that risks condemning Mrs. Sibanda and millions like her to die of AIDS.

As Sam's gymnastics teacher would say, Kristof nailed it! Link

To understand how significantly AIDS is effecting life expectancy in Africa, see this chart. It is a profoundly disturbing graphic.