This is Moral?

[jamesq]

On my morning jog, I ran by a newspaper box. The headline read "Catholic Students Won't Get Cancer". For a moment I pondered what possible mechanism would cause this (while also thanking my lucky stars that I went to Catholic schools). Then I realized that I probably hadn't read the whole headline. Checking online I discover that that was the case. The headline reads: Catholic students won't get cancer vaccine.

Apparently they're doing this on moral grounds. They don't want to be seen as condoning pre-marital sex. Because, naturally, no woman in the history of the world ever got HPV from her husband after their wedding night.

You know, even saying that this will inevitably hurt some percentage of blushing virgin-until-married women is missing the point. It's simply none of the church's business if some girl wants to celebrate her 16th birthday by taking on the football team. For the record, I'd probably agree that that's not a terribly healthy sweet-sixteen, but it's not my business either.

Simply put, it doesn't matter if the mechanism for cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease, a true catholic should be worried about saving lives. Pragmatically, a saved life is a life with a greater opportunity for a saved soul. Do they really need an atheist like me to tell them that?

Bishop Henry (and his masters in Rome) don't seem to worry about that though. Is it that they just want to make sure that sex leads to punishment or is it just that they lack a cervix?

(crossposted to calgarians)

Comments

[laughingmagpie.livejournal.com]

This makes me so mad I could spit.

Declining the vaccine on the basis of not enough evidence is one thing (there's still papers being published debating it) but this is crap.

Sounds like it's time for another letter to the Board.

ETA: And, if I'm not mistaken, they still distribute the Hep B vaccine in the Catholic system, which is primarily a STD. It's just silly grandstanding.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

Ah, but it's better to die of cancer while appearing moral than it would be to live longer while appearing immoral. It's all about the soul, not the body.

/sarcasm

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Bishop Henry (and his masters in Rome) don't seem to worry about that though. Is it that they just want to make sure that sex leads to punishment or is it just that they lack a cervix?

Probably the first, possibly enabled by the second.

Good deconstruction, though. There are a couple of implicit assumptions in the rationale behind denying access to HPV vaccines that are unfounded:

1) "Sex is bad/immoral." (The rationalization being that sex outside of marriage is immoral, but the underlying sentiment being that sex, period, is naughty stuff that should only be engaged in at arm's length, so to speak, and never enjoyed.)

2) "Allowing access to a vaccine to prevent a multi-year-incubating STD will automatically and unavoidably lead to teen girls having promiscuous sex at every opportunity."

I agree with you. The girl celebrating her 16th birthday by taking on the football team may not necessarily be making a particularly smart decision, but the problems with it aren't *moral* problems, and I'd have to submit that whether or not she got her HPV vaccine 6 years ago probably won't be a large factor in that decision.

(I won't indulge in the rant about Catholic and, to an only slightly lesser extent, "Protestant" fundamentalist, sex-negative propaganda in general .. at least not this time.)

[wee-megan.livejournal.com]

Yeah this really frustrates me. I think that they have no right to decline the vaccine on all of the children's behalf. I'm sure that if they hadn't slandered it so badly in the first place many of the Catholic-school-going families would have gladly allowed their daughters to receive the shot but now if a girl gets the shot she's labelled a slut and looked down upon for her "sinful lifestyle". Those young girls are going to have sex when they have sex...Gardasil is not going to make them want to have sex sooner. gggrrRRRR

[oblivions.livejournal.com]

I talked about this vaccine before in my postings but I'm past the age now that it would do any good. Plus the price is well into the 600$ range to pay for it myself.

I would love to slap the 'moral' decision. I've already had to get the call to come in for intense testing for a 2 year duration because of anomalous tests results. It's one of the worst feelings you can have, having your doctor make an appointment for the Cross Cancer Institute.

I hope some of these parents get to live with their daughters when they get the call and then wonder at the morality of the decision before it's too late.

[mallt.livejournal.com]

"This makes me so mad I could spit."
Me too... every time I read about it.

[mallt.livejournal.com]

thanks! you're welcome to steal it!