Monday, June 19, 2006
Cervical Cancer: Now That'll Teach 'Em a Lesson
Let's say you came up with a vaccine that was 100 percent effective against the cause of a certain form of cancer -- let's say the most common viruses that cause cervical cancer, a disease that kills 4000 women a year. That would be a good thing, right?
Well, not so fast.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council is dead set against the vaccine. “Our concern,” he says, “is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence. It sends the wrong message.”
Hal Wallis, the head of another abstinence obsessed group, the Physicians Consortium, says, “If you don’t want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain, and when you find a partner, stick with that partner.”
And that's not all.
“I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100% preventable with proper sexual behavior," says Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.
Yes, our friends on the nut-cake religious right would rather see thousands of women die an agonizing death each year than administer a simple vaccine proven to prevent the disease. If you use the vaccine, you might just have sex, and as we all know, having sex is a much worse fate than death.
Shouldn't we outlaw the Pap Test which has reduced deaths from cervical cancer by 74 percent since 1955, as well?
Come to think of it though, why stop there? We're all sinners, aren't we? Adam and Eve's original sin got us humans thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Until then there was no death or disease.
Why not stop all medical treatments for all diseases. After all, medicine is nothing more than a human attempt to thwart God's will.
Isn't it?
Read the whole sordid story by Gene Gerard at Truthdig.
Well, not so fast.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council is dead set against the vaccine. “Our concern,” he says, “is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence. It sends the wrong message.”
Hal Wallis, the head of another abstinence obsessed group, the Physicians Consortium, says, “If you don’t want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain, and when you find a partner, stick with that partner.”
And that's not all.
“I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100% preventable with proper sexual behavior," says Leslee Unruh of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse.
Yes, our friends on the nut-cake religious right would rather see thousands of women die an agonizing death each year than administer a simple vaccine proven to prevent the disease. If you use the vaccine, you might just have sex, and as we all know, having sex is a much worse fate than death.
Shouldn't we outlaw the Pap Test which has reduced deaths from cervical cancer by 74 percent since 1955, as well?
Come to think of it though, why stop there? We're all sinners, aren't we? Adam and Eve's original sin got us humans thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Until then there was no death or disease.
Why not stop all medical treatments for all diseases. After all, medicine is nothing more than a human attempt to thwart God's will.
Isn't it?
Read the whole sordid story by Gene Gerard at Truthdig.
