Unlimited Ignorance

HPV, or the Human Papillomavirus, is the number one cause of cervical cancer in women – a disease that kills almost 250,000 women a year worldwide. Over half the American population – both men and women – have HPV at some point in their life. (1) In most cases it clears up on its own, and for men, the effects are minimal and curable. But for women, my lucky gender, it can lead to cancer.
Growing up in Christ Church, I remember praying for the end of a lot of different things – world hunger, political strife, feminism (well…not literally, but might have well since it was preached as "evil" from the pulpit), child abuse, Islam, AIDS (oh wait, didn't pray for a cure for that since it was God's judgment on "the Sodomites"), and finally cancer. However, it would seem that some Christians are never satisfied unless answer to prayer comes on their terms.
A couple years ago I heard rumblings about a shot that would prevent HPV and got extremely excited (as I figured everyone would be) that a prevention for this destructive virus was on the way. The FDA approved the vaccine in 2006, and Guardasil is now offered to females between the ages of 9 – 26. How wonderful – there's no reason (given the shot works like its supposed to, with a 95-100% success rate) families and friends should lose another mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, cousin, niece, granddaughter, or friend to cervical cancer caused by HPV. (2)
But some are not so excited about this cancer preventing vaccine. Since I didn't make it clear before, one important thing to know about HPV is that it is a sexually transmitted disease, and this is the reason various Christian organizations are not happy about it.
"Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," the FRC's Bridget Maher reportedly told New Scientist. "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." (3)
How interesting – it didn't even occur to me that preventing cancer and saving girl's lives could be a negative or "harmful" thing – for any reason.
"We're going to be sending a message to a lot of kids, I think, that you just take this shot and you can be as sexually promiscuous as you want and it's not going to be a problem, and that's just not true," Dr. Hal Wallace, who heads the Physicians Consortium, said in a Focus on the Family news release. (4)
Call me crazy, but Guardasil is only known to prevent 2 kinds of STDs (HPV and Genital warts) and with proper sex ed (or common sense), I trust the American youth to understand that they CAN'T be "as sexually promiscuous as [they] want" just because of one shot.
I'll be reasonable though, I can understand parents not wanting their teens or pre-teens having sex (protected or not). I don't think most teens appreciate or completely understand sex, and I'm not going to be the kind of parent who encourages my kids to have rampant premarital sex. However, I am going to be a realistic parent who loves their child enough to 1) educate them about sex and their options and 2) do everything humanly possible to protect them from some of the ramifications of their choices (i.e. birth control, vaccines etc.)
The problem I have with these parents is that they are so concerned with their "Christian moral values" they are potentially harming their children. These parents need to face it that they can tell their kids to abstain until they're blue in the face, but in the end, when their teen has sex, it's a decision they'll make without their parents. I do not understand the type of parent that wouldn't want the safety net of a vaccine that would protect their child from the possibly unhealthy ramifications of their "mistake/sin." There's a lot to be said about having a personal set of ethics and morals – but to impose that on your children to such an extent you put them at risk…to me that's the real "sin."
I'll wrap this up with a quote that made me laugh and want to throw up at the same time. This is from Janet Parshall, a staff member of the Family Research Council in 1999:
"Either have sex before marriage and get an STD and HIV, HPV or an unplanned pregnancy, or you save it until marriage and you live happily ever after."(5)
There is no limitation to ignorance.


Referenced Websites:
1) http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/default.htm
2) http://www.fda.gov/womens/getthefacts/hpv.html
3-5) http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=6587