Escaped Thoughts

Parenting By Death Threat

Sometimes the religious right just pisses me off, but other times they make me feel downright sick. Take the following gem from an article about vaccines being developed for the human papilloma virus:

In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favor vaccinating their daughters. “Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims

Remember kids, it's wrong to allow terminally ill people to end their life in a manner of their choosing, but it's okay to withhold potentially life-saving treatments from people who don't choose to live their lives according your rules!

So here's what really gets me. Lets assume the existence of a 100% effective HPV virus (it doesn't exist yet, as far as I know, but it theoretically could). There's no reason to think that these people wouldn't be at least as against it as they are against the 90%+ version being tested now. Given that vaccine, every case of HPV that leads to cervical cancer and possible death would be preventable. Morally, there is no difference I can see between withholding such a vaccine from everybody when it could be administered, and intentionally introducing a new potentially deadly STD into the population. You know what the latter would be called? Biological warfare. Terrorism. It would get you locked in a small cell in a military camp existing outside of normal US laws. But the former is just “protecting family values”.

Oh, and that 80% number? I was heartened by it until I read it the other way: 20% of parents would like to see their daughters get cancer and possibly die if they engage in pre- or extra-marital sex (or even just marry someone who has/does).

Other's Thoughts

From the mind of Laura Morgan - Wed, May 18, 2005

You sound like you think that locking this hypothetical STD creator in a small cell outside normal US laws would be good punishment, but I happen to know that you don't think any such thing!

I don't know that an intentionally introduced STD would be considered biological warfare, in the same way that say, releasing smallpox would. Anything having to do with sex in this country automatically gets treated differently than related issues/problems that don't involve sex.

Control of access to medication and medical advances for social and behavioral control purposes has been around a long time. Sometimes it is clearly for moral issues, sometimes for economics, sometimes both. Difficulties with access to medical treatment can be controled both by the powerful, opressor groups (which is how you are viewing the religious right; they, incidentally, think the liberals are the oppressors), or by the disenfranchized, underserved, or minority group that the treatment could help. The article you cited, while talking about the religious right in the US, also talked about the potential problems with vaccine access in the third world, an issue you didn't bring up in your post. That discussion raised issues of cultural conflicts, and that the protestations of the religious right can also be viewed from a cultural context. I think that there is frequently a difficult line to walk in healthcare, particularily womens healthcare, in minority or disenfranchised populations. How does one integrate medical advances without driving a steamroller over cultural hallmarks? I don't think that an HPV vaccine, no matter how widely available will do much to change rates of sexual promiscuity, but I can see how it could be regarded as yet another attempt to spread the culture of promiscuity that is associated with the United States. Be you a Christian lobbist in Washington, or a parent in Bombay, you both want to keep your daughter from turning into Britany Spears. I don't think fighting the availablity of the HPV vaccine is the way to do that, but I think it is laudable goal that deserves to be respected.

From the mind of Stuart - Wed, May 18, 2005

Some points I should clarify:

- I don't think anyone should be in a small cell outside normal US laws. I was illustrating the extreme dichotomy of views held of what I consider an equivalent action. I doubt very much that the same dichotomy doesn't exist to some extent among people who approve of groups like the FRC.

- I have no problem with people who want to dissuade their children form promiscuity, and I respect that desire. But I have no respect for the desire to use the threat of death to do so, any more than I respect the practice of stoning women to death for sexual transgressions. I didn't get into culture because I don't see the issue of cultural context as relevant to my judgement of what I consider to be a barbaric action or idea—building cultural tradition around something I find fundamentally wrong doesn't make me feel that it's less wrong.

- I don't think people with conservative values based in religious beliefs are terrible baby-eating monsters. But when people build on top of those beliefs with ideas that violate what I consider to be basic human decency, then I can't help but judge those ideas. And since people are defined in large part (if not entirely) by the ideas they hold and the actions based off of them, I can't respect the portion of who they are that is defined by the ideas that I find repugnant.

- It occured to me that that 20% might not be quite so bad, since there are plenty of people who object to vaccinations on grounds that have nothing to do with cowing their children into submission. Still, even if it's 10%, or 5%, or even 1%, who think like Maher seems to, it still makes me queasy.