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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Jodi L. Jacobson, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 910, Takoma Park, MD 20912, 301 270-1182, jjacobson@Genderhealth.org

The growing influence of the fundamentalist right has had dramatic impacts on freedom of choice and on sexual health and rights in the United States, at the state, local, and national level. In recent years, and particularly under the Bush Administration, this movement has become increasingly powerful in shaping US global policy, funding, and program implementation on global sexual and reproductive health and rights. As a result, the U.S. fundamentalist right has shifted the flow of funds from public health and human rights actors to “faith-based” groups, replacing public health approaches and methods with those based on ideology; has been instrumental in the new “strategic information” movement in the areas of health, rights, and social policy; is working directly to strengthen and collaborate with fundamentalist movements in other countries; and has supported a vigilante movement that “monitors” the work of health and rights groups on the ground.

This presentation will examine and give explicit examples of the ways in which the fundamentalist right has shaped the core agenda around reproductive and sexual rights. The presentation will offer an overarching analysis of shifts in US policy and funding streams in the areas of HIV prevention and reproductive health; draw from ground research and policy analysis on how shifts in program and policy are affecting programs on the ground in other countries; and also offer a critique of why the sexual and reproductive health movements have largely failed to date to effectively push back on profound changes in the field. The presentation will end with concrete suggestions about where we need to go in recapturing the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda across the areas of sexual and reproductive health (including HIV).

Learning Objectives: Participants in this session will learn the following from this presentation

• The extent to which fundamentalist religious ideology has
  Infiltrated US global AIDS and reproductive health policies and shaped funding streams, in part by expanding on and/or placing new ideological restrictions on policy and program. Used affiliations and other strategies to combine corporate and medical ideologies and agendas with religious ideologies to achieve their ends vis a vis sexual health and rights in the area of HIV prevention. Initiated dramatic shifts in the scope of funding and the landscape of recipients, further eroding public accountability for the way public dollars are used to further public health. Developed a vigilante system on the ground to undermine public health and human rights efforts elsewhere.
  • An analysis of why the sexual and reproductive health movements have failed both to grasp, and/or been effective either proactively or even reactively in countering this agenda.
  • The remaining challenges that need to be met both between and within the traditional HIV and SHRH/R fields to create effective responses to the fundamentalist agenda and regain the momentum in pursuit of both public health and human rights.

  Presenting author's disclosure statement:

  Any relevant financial relationships? No
  

  Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

  The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA