Jamie Tobias Neely: Some missed point on practicality

So apparently we had some confusion.

Several mornings lately I’ve padded down to the kitchen table in my bathrobe, only to read angry letters to the editor over my breakfast cereal.

So here’s the problem: Two weeks ago, I wrote a column about former Holy Names graduate Donna Reilly Flanagan and her 40-year career in international service. Most recently, she’s been working to fight the spread of AIDS in Asian countries, where cultural acceptance of prostitution compounds the difficulty of fighting this terrible disease.

It’s a complex issue, and the solutions don’t easily line up with traditional American values. While a number of people chimed in to agree with the column, several letter writers railed against it. They wrote to defend the message of abstinence and to accuse me of making heroes of sex workers.

And it was clear they missed my point entirely.

In the column, I shared Flanagan’s story of a small village in Laos where residents devised a solution to fix their washed-out dirt road. They sent two daughters of the village off to the city to work as prostitutes to raise the money to pave it. When the young women returned, the villagers embraced them as local heroes.

Of course, neither Flanagan nor I shared the tale to promote prostitution as a viable alternative to taxation, or to cast these young women as potential teen role models.

I expected that much would be obvious.

The Laotian brides’ story demonstrates the deep cultural differences between America and Laos. Global public health workers often encounter values we simply can’t fathom in the U.S. A feel-good message about abstinence wouldn’t have stopped these villagers from making such a sad choice. Nor would it have prevented their daughters from risking AIDS.

Governments, foundations, individuals and religious groups can battle poverty or work to influence individual morality. But public health workers must be allowed to focus on fighting disease.

Certainly, letter writers make some valid points. Sex trafficking could not be a more hideous crime. Prostitution makes a lousy means of economic sustainability.

They get no argument from me there.

But some of their points are way too simplistic.

“You can’t get pregnant or an STD with abstinence,” one wrote.

As a lifelong strategy for adults, abstinence has its weaknesses. They start with human frailty. We’ve certainly been reminded lately that not even taking public vows of celibacy is any guarantee.

It’s particularly impractical for Asian sex workers who must choose between risking AIDS or starving.

A public service announcement about abstinence doesn’t help the prostitute who in a split second can either catch or convey the virus. It doesn’t help the man who visits her. It doesn’t help the man’s faithful wife. And it most certainly does not protect the babies either of these women may bear.

But focused public health efforts like Flanagan’s have helped. According to the latest United Nations report, as rates of condom use have climbed in the Cambodian sex industry, the prevalence of HIV has declined.

I’d prefer to wave a magic wand to wipe out prostitution and the poverty that spawns it, to obliterate the sex trade and the AIDS virus itself. I lack that power. But I do see some glimmers of hope.

Among them are health workers like Flanagan, clear-eyed and brave, who meet people exactly where they are, whether it’s a brothel in Phnom Penh or a village in Africa.

I also heard from readers who share my perspective. One, in particular, delighted me.

She’s a Sister of the Holy Names, a former teacher at the school where Flanagan studied so many years ago.

“I suspect you are getting some negative comments on the article about Donna Flanagan,” Sister Frances Kendrick wrote in her e-mail. “So: You and she are right on! To paraphrase the archbishop in Brazil in regard to their AIDS program: The job of a Christian is compassion, not judgment.…

“And compassion needs to be practical to be real.”

Thanks, Sister. From where I sit, over my coffee and my Honey Bunches of Oats, that sounds like a sentiment that could change the world.