Esther Kaplan

Recent Articles

Fairy-Tale Failure

Even in an administration famous for its contempt for science, the President's tortured case for abstinence stands out. He committed $1 billion to abstinence-only programs abroad without a shred of scientific evidence that they prevent disease. Casting about for justification, he and the virginity advocates who surround him latched on to one of the developing world's rare AIDS success stories: Uganda. In their fertile imaginations, the East African nation was a fairy-tale place where Christian morality had turned the epidemic around.