Cancer is *definitely* not a family value
Words fail me. News of a new vaccine effective against Human Papilloma Virus has brought a remarkable
passage from the Family Research Council's February newsletter back into circulation. I quote extensively to avoid any danger of taking out of context:
Although we support research on vaccines and medicines against diseases, including sexually transmitted ones, we see potential harm in giving young people vaccines against STDs. First, young people are risk-takers; they may think a vaccination is a license to engage in premarital sex. Second, vaccinations may help to reduce the risk of one disease, but young people may be exposed to new and unknown risks. Third, there is no vaccination for ailments of the heart. What will protect young people from the loneliness and regret they are likely to experience after premarital sex? Abstinence is the best medicine available for STDs; no one has ever needed a vaccine or antibiotic to treat a case of abstinence.
Sure, they weasel and waffle and never come out clearly against vaccinating children against fatal diseases, but they're sure as fuck not in favor of it.
I keep wanting to satirize this--to compare it to condemnation of precautions in some other realm--but everything I come up with is less absurd, less depraved in its heartless, vicious, hateful pursuit of narrow self-righteousness than the original. I can't do it--I'm beaten.
To be fair, I can't really put my finger on why this is so even more offensive than opposing condom distribution. Maybe my skin has just thickened about the latter
I try not to post about politics if a) I have nothing original or clever to add and b) I'm confident that everyone likely to read what I have to say already agrees with me, but this is so utterly beyond the pale that I felt the need to help get the word out.
Actually, I do have one point that I haven't seen much elsewhere--if you wander through the FRC's releases for a while, you notice that they're fascinated with HPV--in any discussion of sex ed, it's exhibit number one for why condom education is worthless. I suspect, and this is a bit of a leap, that one of the reasons they love it so is that it suits their fundamental world view. The disease punishes those dirty little sluts, while leaving boys largely unscathed. In this light, their panic at their baby being taken away makes a little more sense.
comment by spike:
I'm thinking about the question of why this seems worse than opposing condom distribution. I agree with you--it does feel more evil.
To me, opposing vaccination of teenage girls feels like a withholding of parental protection. One could argue that distributing condoms does not confer protection (from STDs) because distributing them is insufficient. Condoms don't work unless you use them, and if you're female, that means convincing your male partner to use them. They are utterly useless in cases of extreme power differential between partners, including but not limited to rape. And, condom distribution does not make sense without some accompaning discussion of sexual behavior.
Vaccination confers protection long-term regardless of the current level of knowledge or the eventual behavior of the vaccinated person. To accept vaccination at the urging of one's parent or doctor requires very little active participation or concious thought about one's sexuality. Having one's child vaccinated does not require the same sort of frank discussion of sexual behavior that explaining how to use a comdom does.
So, it seems to me that while a parent could conceivably believe that comdom distribution encourages their child to think about sex before they may be ready, no such claim can reasonably be made about vaccination. So, it really is about saying "My daughter deserves what she gets...even if it kills her."