Next week, heroic Congressmembers will challenge Bush and brethren's abstinence program in Africa. Led by Rep. Howard Berman, the evidence-based bastion will attempt to muscle funding away from proven-to-fail chastity programs in favor of the proven-to-work prevention programs.

Naturally, the "just say no to sex" crowd is launching a full-scale counter-offensive employing their favorite weapon: confusion. Efforts to supply people in the most at-risk for HIV/AIDS regions of the world with condoms rather than sermons is being cast by fundamentalist political groups as "an abortion program". And while that's a bit like claiming donations to cancer research are somehow pro-tobacco, the tactic seems to work every time.

"Abortion" is a conversation stopper, like calling someone a racist. It automatically throws the pro-prevention team on defense and segues the conversation into what for most bystanders sounds like another rerun of the abortion debate. And with that, the eyelids droop. Attention drifts to LiLo, resurrected as naked Marilyn, or to a little plan to shoot a satellite out of space. Even thoughtful people don’t stick around long enough to find out that U.S. funding for abortion services internationally is already banned.

Of course, this was never about abortion. It’s about condoms. In this case condoms to fight AIDS. Stupefying as it seems, the anti-sex crusaders prefer death to condoms. Let’s hope the chastity crusaders don’t pull another fast one. If they do, it'll be over Africans' dead bodies.