Argentinean lawyers reject AIDS prevention manual for students

Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 14, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The Corporation of Catholic Lawyers in Argentina has rejected the distribution of a manual on AIDS prevention to 11 year-old students, saying it would expose children to various forms of promiscuity without their parents’ knowledge.

In a statement, the lawyers argued that the text, which was originally published in 2005, would expose students to information on masturbation, the use of condoms and other aberrant forms of sexual relations.

They pointed out that Argentina’s Ministry of Education, working with officials of the United Nations Development Program, claims it is “necessary and opportune to offer this kind of material to educational institutions.”

The lawyers also noted that the manual graphically encourages masturbation as a healthy and normal activity and that among the different methods for preventing the spread of AIDS, condoms are the most effective.

“Even at the risk of shocking readers, we have deemed it necessary to reproduce word-for-word this shameless game which the Ministry has proposed for all public and private schools, so that the entire country might know what those who wish to push sex-ed forward in Argentinean schools think about man, the world and life,” the lawyers noted.

Lastly, the group of Catholic lawyers demanded the competent authorities immediately rectify the situation, “not only for the sake of Christian principles but also for that of the sensible and reasonable educational philosophy shared by the members of other faiths and even by people of good will who are not members of any faith.”