In the “water is wet” category, we have a new study showing that HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccination significantly reduces the chance of contracting HPV, with its accompanying dangers of cervical cancer.
Among girls 14 to 19 years old, rates of infection with the four types of HPV included in the 4vHPV vaccine decreased from 11.5% to 4.3%. There was also a drop, although smaller, in women 20 to 24 years old, from 18.5% to 12.1%.
And in the “water is wet and Republicans are freaky” category, we also have studies showing that HPV vaccination won’t turn your daughter into a slutty-slutty-slut.
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Incredibly, we still have right-wingers ranting that we mustn’t let little Susie get a vaccination that could save her life, and I’ll bet you can guess why.
“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful,” Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, “because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”
As Katha Pollitt said in her brilliant essay Virginity or Death,
Raise your hand if you think that what is keeping girls virgins now is the threat of getting cervical cancer when they are 60 from a disease they’ve probably never heard of.
Jessica Valenti once made a chart (which alas, I can not longer find) of right-wing positions, particularly around reproductive rights, and asked the same questions about each one: Is this consistent with their stated goal of being “pro-life”? Is it consistent with punishing sex, especially for women? Over and over, the answers were no and yes, in that order. For instance: Attacking access to birth control. Banning the safest method of late-term abortion, which is only used when the woman’s safety is at stake. Forcing humiliating, medically unnecessary procedures like trans-vaginal ultrasounds. Allowing fertility clinic clients to dispose of embryos without all the roadblocks that are routinely used for abortion. Defunding Planned Parenthood, which saves women’s lives with STD treatment and early cancer detection.
Right-wingers don’t really think they can keep anyone from having sex. But they want to prevent, as Erick Erickson once called it, consequence-free sex.
But let’s imagine for a moment that the “Family” Research Council has it right. Let’s assume that my kid was totally planning on staying a virgin forever, but the moment that she got that needle stick, she was overcome with an irresistible urge to rush out and throw herself at the first available male. And, teenagers’ judgment being what it is, she might make a terrible mistake. Which, as we all know, teenagers never did when HPV was a threat.
I guess I’ll just have to take comfort in the fact that, thanks to HPV vaccination, she’ll still be around to regret it decades from now.
On to Top Comments!
From your humble (if antisocial) diarist:
In Hunter’s diary, Evangelical voters hate Donald Trump because he hates the same people they do, grover cracks the code on the Republican Bible:
Well, they gave the Bible to the Texas Textbook Commission for a little editing.
"Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?" Jesus said to him, "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.' This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." .…
unless they are Muslim, Mexican, black (Obama and Beyoncé in particular), Teh Gays, want birth control, or otherwise make you feel icky. Also guns are cool. Always shoot first. (Oops!)
(Matthew 22:35-40. Perry Board of Ed 40:65)
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