Virginity or Death!

[HawkerHurricane]

Imagine a vaccine that would protect women from a serious gynecological cancer. Wouldn't that be great? Well, both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline recently announced that they have conducted successful trials of vaccines that protect against the human papilloma virus. HPV is not only an incredibly widespread sexually transmitted infection but is responsible for at least 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer, which is diagnosed in 10,000 American women a year and kills 4,000. Wonderful, you are probably thinking, all we need to do is vaccinate girls (and boys too for good measure) before they become sexually active, around puberty, and HPV--and, in thirty or forty years, seven in ten cases of cervical cancer--goes poof. Not so fast: We're living in God's country now. The Christian right doesn't like the sound of this vaccine at all. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful," Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, "because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." Raise your hand if you think that what is keeping girls virgins now is the threat of getting cervical cancer when they are 60 from a disease they've probably never heard of.
more at link
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050530/pollitt

[SharonAnn]

1. Their logic flaw is assuming the husbands won't be carrying the virus.

Many men carry the virus and don't even know it. So, if a girl is chaste until marriage but her husband carries the virus then or later, she can be as chaste as she wants and still die from a preventable disease.

Or, as a mother of a daughter said to a fundie mother of a son, "Your son's ignorance could kill my daughter."

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. They can fuss all they want

this is happening. Period.

[Double T]

3. The christian fundie right doesn't want to lose the HPV fear factor.......

so they can maintain their stable of christian virgins.

[Cleita]

4. I thought that license for pre-marital sex had already

been passed out with the advent of the pill. These people need a reality check and if I had adolescent children I would get them the vaccine as soon as it was available, even if I had to take them to Sweden to do it.

[AndyTiedye]

10. They Are Working To Ban Birth Control

After they overturn Roe, they'll go after Griswold v. Connecticut
so they can ban birth control too.

[sufrommich]

5. I love this one.

I predict it will be another eye opener to Americans as to who these whack jobs really are.Blast away,fundies!

[sam sarrha]

6. the "license" is any place nobody can see them do it..

[PaulaFarrell]

7. Please vaccinate the boys too

Genital warts are gross and hard to get rid of in both sexes (irregardless of potential cervical cancer)

[mongo]

9. Thanks for making that point

[occuserpens]

8. It is not this simple

-- What about complications?
-- How much it will cost?

The article ignores these issues.

[HawkerHurricane]

13. That's OK.

So do the opponents of the vaccine.

It's a opinion article.

Some people oppose this vaccine because it will protect girls from a sexual transmitted disease, and will prevent some cancers... better to get the disease and cancer than to have sex, right?

[PowerToThePeople]

11. Death! n/t

[mongo]

12. The religious right is insane

they know damn well that "abstinance only" education doesn't work, that "virginity pledges" don't work, they know that condom distribution in schools doesn't increase first sexual activity, etc. etc. etc.

They just don't care for facts - sex is evil and something you should be punished for. If you get cervical cancer it is because it is "God's will" and you deserve it.

They are dangerous for the future of America.

[Doctor_J]

14. I'll take death, if those are my choices