Back in April, I wrote about how a potential vaccine for one form of cancer – cervical cancer caused by HPV – might be blocked as a result of our usual anti-sex, unrealistic Religious Right. The thing is, girls could be saved the chance of ever getting cervical cancer by getting the vaccination, but some people would rather those girls risk dying of a preventable cancer because they feel that giving the girls a vaccination might ‘encourage’ them to have sex.
It’s along the same line of thinking as ‘let our kids die, but don’t give them condoms.’ That is, an idiotic line of thinking.
One of the regulars over at DailyKos has written an astonishingly good piece about women, HPV, the vaccine, and why some people have a problem with saving girls’ lives. I strongly recommend reading it through to the end.