Bill Clinton: “I commend the leadership as well as the President for bringing this important issue of global HIV/AIDS to the floor this…”

“I commend the leadership as well as the President for bringing this important issue of global HIV/AIDS to the floor this evening, although the hour is obviously very late. While I am pleased with many aspects of this bill, and the commitment it represents, I do believe the bill is flawed in a very important and fundamental respect; and that is, with regard to the treatment of and concern for girls and women. As many of us know who have traveled in Africa, the Caribbean, and other places where the HIV/AIDS pandemic has ravaged so many people, young girls, girls barely in their teens, adolescents, young women, are all too often the victims of this disease because of the way they are treated. I believe in abstinence. I went to Uganda in 1997. I was impressed, as many of my colleagues have been, by what I saw with respect to the program that Uganda undertook and certainly the results. But I am concerned that abstinence is not a prevention tool realistically available to many girls and women throughout Africa.”