HPV: The Religious Right’s Favorite Venereal Disease

May 28, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

I wanted to take a moment to comment on the Carpetbagger’s recent post about the Family Research Council’s attack on new vaccines that can combat the human papillomavirus (HPV). I’d like to provide some more information so readers can understand how truly evil the FRC’s stand is.

First, some background: HPV is a rapidly spreading venereal disease. By some accounts, more than half of all sexually active people may carry the virus, which can cause outbreaks of genital warts. Although not considered as serious as syphilis or gonorrhea, HPV is not to be taken lightly. It’s true that many people who get it never show symptoms, but some forms can increase a woman’s chances of developing cervical cancer.

Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed vaccines that immunize against HPV infection. Merck would like to see the vaccine routinely given to young women as they enter high school. Sure, Merck is probably pushing this since it would hand them a tidy profit, but at the same time, a legitimate public-health issue does exist because — get this — teenagers have been known to have sex. HPV in many ways is a silent epidemic. Condoms are less effective against it than other sexually transmitted diseases, meaning a vaccine could be very useful.

But the FRC has other ideas. The organization’s Bridget Maher told New Scientist: “Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV. Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”

As New Scientist pointed out, lives are at stake here in the United States but especially in the third world. “Deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year by 2050, mainly in developing countries,” noted the magazine. “This could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against the virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer — but there are signs that opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.”

Just to be clear: The FRC’s position is to deny young women a vaccine that would protect them against a nasty sexually transmitted disease, a disease that in some cases can lead to cervical cancer. One can’t help but think that the FRC’s view is, “They sinned, now let them suffer for it.”

One could call that lots of things, but “pro-family” isn’t one of them.

I call it an obscene abomination, and a crime against humanity, too!

Hey, FRC, while you’re at it, why don’t we get rid of dentists; that’ll teach those “trick-ro-treat kids” a lesson on too much candy and sugar! And hell, let’s get rid of telephones and the internet, because “sex” happens there, too!!

What a bunch of “Hue, Vietnam” syndrome-type thinking: we have to destroy our women to save them. Now that’s compassion for ‘ya. A fucking Missouri mule has more sense that these idiots — and this statement supporting the nonsense comes from (what I assume to be) a woman.

I think we need to expand on the theme of “you can’t trust the Republicans with your money”, to include we can’t trust them with our kids, with our education, with our science, with our morality, and sure as hell NOT with our government. Asshats!

  • Based on this position, we can only assume that FRC also opposes all research towards development of an HIV vaccine. Why develop a vaccine that will prevent a killer disease that can be avoided with abstinence?

  • “Teenagers have been known to have sex” increasingly because they are conditioned to do so by the mass media and “education” systems.

    Drugs companies have been known to make billions out of sex.

    Put the two together and hey, let’s make some more money.

    Why do they not promote abstinance?

    I wonder.

  • Since I’d seen this same quote reporting Bridget Maher’s nutball contention that the HPV vaccine should be withheld from young women because it’ll encourage them to screw, from a few different sources, I decided to check out the Family Research Council’s web site and see what position they take on it, and to see just what this Bridget Maher has to do with it. Omigod! The place is incredible. If you click on their “Policy Areas” link, you’ll probably notice immediately that the first column is “Human Sexuality” with the following topics linked:

    AIDS
    Abstinence
    Abstinence Education
    Adolescent Behavior
    Condoms
    Contraceptive Issues
    Domestic Partnership/Gay Marriage/Civil Unions
    Employment Nondiscrimination Act
    Federal Marriage Amendment
    Gay Adoption
    Gay Gene
    Hate Crimes
    Homosexual Activism
    Homosexual Counseling
    Homosexual Ex-Gay Network
    Homosexual Parenting
    Homosexuality
    Homosexuals in the Military
    Internet Filters
    Internet Pornography
    Kinsey Research
    Pornography
    Sex Ed
    Sex Offenses
    Teen Pregnancy / Abstinence

    Seem like they’re a little bit hung up on gays? Well, I stuck it out and did a little more exploring, but the FRC seems to have distanced themselves from Ms. Maher’s statement, since there is not a single place on their site search that turned up any mention whatsoever of HPV or vaccine. I did run across an interesting article about college debt which she co-wrote, though, which got my attention since I’ll soon have two kids in college. Apparently here was an article describing reasons why we should make an effort to reduce college students’ debts for their education. Do tell…

    Here are a few excerpts to give you the gist of the argument. You wonder, upon reading this, whatever happened to overpopulation. For further twisted entertainment, feel free to explore the FRC site at will for hours of appalling laughter.

    I’ll put the notes from that tuition article in the following post, since I think I’m exceeding my quota!

  • Here are some excerpts from that article. There’s much more good clean family entertainment at the FRC website, courtesy of Tony Perkins (oh, there’s a bit about him too, below).

    Student Loans and the Retreat from Family: A Modest Proposal

    by: Dr. Allan C. Carlson, Ph. D.
    Bridget E. Maher

    Our nation’s federal loan program encourages students to accrue debt, which unintentionally discourages them from marrying and having children. In 2002, according to the National Student Loan Survey, 14 percent of graduates reported delaying marriage because of their student debt, compared to 7 percent in 1991. Also in 2002, 21 percent reported delaying having children, compared to 12 percent in 1991….

    A cheap and appropriate solution to the problem of the federal loan program undermining the material basis of family formation is to reverse the incentives. Specifically, we propose that for every new child born to indebted married parents, the federal government pay off one-fourth of their outstanding student debt, up to $5,000 each for mother and father (a figure that would be indexed to overall inflation). This choice would instantaneously remove the disincentives toward marriage and childbearing that young graduates now face, creating modest incentives in their place. The birth of four children over the space of 6 to 8 years could eliminate debt of up to $40,000.

    Why favor marriage and encourage childbearing? Marriage has beneficial social and health effects for both adults and children, and these gifts benefit the community and the whole society. Also, children will stimulate economic demand, expand the labor supply, and generate extra tax revenues for government of at least $800,000 per person over a lifetime. A modest federal investment of $10,000 in parental debt relief at the start of a new life would–for a change–be a good public investment.

    If a government set out to strangle slowly the family life of its people, what would be the best tactic? One diabolical approach would be to saddle young adults in their early twenties with massive debt. Surely, this would delay marriages, as potential spouses shied away from this perverse form of anti-dowry. Even more surely, this tactic would push back childbearing for a decade or more, as potential mothers and fathers put off having children until their debt collectors were satisfied. Such delays would mean more infertility, smaller families, and empty or never-formed homes.

    _______________________________________

    So there you go, you young grads. Get out there and fulfill your childbearing responsibilities. Help is on the way! Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure you read up on other topics on the FRC site, where you’ll be lectured on keeping women in their place in dozens of enlightening articles. It’s your duty to use your college education, girls, for your prime function in life: breeding.

    Oh, and the illustrious Tony Perkins, chief poobah of the FRC: look no further than ye olde Carpetbagger (quickly becoming one of my favorite sites, I must say). April 27.

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