EDITORIAL – Conservative right halts new vaccine

It seems that the conservative right’s plan to impose its political and religious beliefs on… It seems that the conservative right’s plan to impose its political and religious beliefs on all American citizens is in full effect. But this time they will stop at nothing to promote their cause, even at the expense of another human life.

“A vaccine for two of the most common strains of HPV [Human Papilloma Virus], the virus that causes genital warts, is currently moving through the federal approval process,” reported Dan Savage this week in Savage Love and commented upon extensively in the Washington Post.

The vaccine is practically bulletproof, passing all of the clinical trials with a 100 percent efficiency rate. Furthermore, it will save the lives of approximately 4,000 women every year, whose contraction of HPV eventually results in death by cervical cancer. And that doesn’t even count the women who would not have to endure the uncomfortable and sometimes debilitating symptoms that accompany genital warts, if the vaccine were in common use.

The two groups in direct opposition regarding the vaccine are the social conservatives and the health advocates. The conservative right feels introducing the vaccine will promote premarital sex. Health advocates – and most people with a breath of humanity – want to simply promote the health of others and save lives.

Taking a closer look at the makeup of the individuals who will be deliberating upon this, it seems that the Christian fundamentalists have it. Unfortunately, everyone else who doesn’t hear the subliminal message in a vaccine that will save lives will suffer because, once again, conservatives can’t see the forest for the trees.

Do conservatives realize that the vaccination against HPV doesn’t prevent herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea or HIV and AIDS? This vaccine is not promoting sex, it’s preventing cancer, the same cancer that results from HPV can be contracted in someone’s closet during seven minutes of heaven, or transmitted during a forcible rape in a parking garage.

People need to step outside of their routine ways of thinking and understand that different people have different beliefs. Instead of conservatives concentrating on what could possibly promote sex to their unsuspecting teen-agers, they need to focus that energy on raising their kids right. They probably are the only kids who would think a vaccination against HPV gives them the go-ahead to have unprotected sex without any other consequences.

If we say that we live in a democracy, we have to service all of our constituents fairly, giving them the best chance at protecting themselves from any illness. If not, then what’s next? Will we refuse a cure for heart disease because it has the potential to promote the consumption of fatty foods, which could in turn lead to obesity and then, again, heart disease?

It almost seems laughable to contend that in the United States we still have freedom to practice religion, when all too often one’s practice of religion infringes so much on someone else’s. And it’s one thing to believe, it’s another to allow your belief to legislate against something that could save lives because of the mere potential of others going against your belief.

The day will soon be upon us when we must bring our marriage certificates to the government to purchase what used to be over-the-counter contraception, and then it will be too late. Organizations that believe in the basic rights of health need to move on this. Petitions need to be signed. Those dying from cervical cancer, living in the richest country in the world, deserve the right to live.