Christian "culture of life" conservatives want to kill 3,700 women a year

[HamdenRice]

Scientists announced recently that they had created one of the first effective vaccines against a form of cancer. Cervical cancer is caused mostly by the HPV virus, which is very widespread. Cervical cancer affects 10,000 American women a year and 3,700 women per year die from the disease.

The new vaccine against HPV is nearly 100% effective. Public health officials are advocating that all adolescent girls be administered the vaccine, which is expected to virtually eliminate cervical cancer in future years as these girls mature and become sexually active women.

So-called "cultural conservatives" have signalled that they will try to block blanket immunization against HPV. They argue that immunization against this sexually transmitted cancer will send the message that non-marital, non-monogamous sex is acceptable.

"I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,' " said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations.

Considering the way the same organizations of the Christian right have politiicized and eventually blocked licensing of the "Plan B" birth control pill by the Christian conservative Bush administration, because, they argue, it causes an abortion or an embryo, they may well succeed in preventing immunization against HPV.

If they succeed, the result of their taking offense at the "subtle signal" of immunization that sex is OK, will be that 3,700 women will needlessly die of cervical cancer each year and tens of thousands will suffer hysterectomies, infertility and illness.

For more see:

http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-hsdrug4512279nov15,0,4233278.story

[ixion]

1. silly...it's only 'life' until you're actually born,

at which point you become a drone, slave or cannon fodder, unless you happen to be part of the top 1%.

That is the 'Culture of Life' as defined by the wingers, IMO.

[porphyrian]

4. Wait, no, they think it's life once you fornicate.

The act causes an unperceivable magical being to bless a baby into you, if you're worthy. At that point, it's life.

[noonwitch]

2. I don't think an HPV immunization is going to cause an increase in

promiscuity. When little kids watch the kind of dreck that is on tv, or play violent and sexually violent video games, listen to music that degrades women as sex objects, I really don't think that an immunization that prevents a deadly std is the problem.

Not that I support censorship, I'm just making a point about the state of our culture.

[electron_blue]

3. Evidently their abstinence program is based heavily on fear & terrorism

and not on the sanctity of marriage.

[HamdenRice]

19. Isn't Christianity about choosing good?

I agree. It's also anti-Christian because we are supposed to have free will and choose good if we are good, not be terrorized into being good.

But this whole idea is so stupid it is hard to reason about.

[marbuc]

5. Cancer preventing agent = sabatoge of abstinence message?

I don't get it. Is one of their scare tactics that sex causes cancer? This is just wrong. I can understand their objection to embryonic stem cell research, or Plan B (I disagree on both counts but can understand where they are coming from) but I cannot understand the rationale behind their position here.

[Ian David]

14. Just wait until there is an effective AIDS vaccine. They'll object to it

I guarantee it 100%.

[iamjoy]

15. Because They Rely On Fear

I will have to look for the quote, but I think Phyllis Schlafly (she of Eagle Forum) once said something like: it is a good thing for young girls to be deterred from pre-marital sexual activity because they are afraid of a disease which could affect her ability to have healthy children even years later when she is happily married

GOOD TO BE SCARED. This is wrong on so many levels, but even when I try to see it from the So-Called-Christian perspective - shouldn't fear of hell enough? What about the psychological affects of promiscuity? If they want to play on our fears, there are lots of other ways.

That said, I hope no one is thinking such a vaccine should be mandatory. It is up to the parents to decide what they want for their daughter. Get it Radical Clerics? If you don't want to "encourage" your daughter to have sex because you think fear of death (rather than open, honest communication) is the way to promote abstinence, you go right ahead - but you have no business deciding for other parents.

:grr:

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Fundamentalist Christians are at war with areligious sexuality, not

abortion, birth control, extra/premarital sex. They just want a heterosexual man and woman to legally marry, have sex with the purpose of creating Christian children, and then stop sex when the woman can no longer conceive. All other alternatives should be made illegal replete with punishment for violations.

[HamdenRice]

16. This is a big part of it; Next Target: "Deliberate childlessness"

I agree, and I don't think most people realize how dangerous it is to cater to these people.

The next attack, which they are warming up in the wings, is an attack on any married couples who choose not to have children -- or indeed as many children as "God gives them". In other words, if even married people can't use birth control, they are going to have a lot less sex, which is what these people are ultimately trying to prevent.

Here's a reference to the growing debate in fundy circles about going after "deliberate childlessness" -- which they see as sinful and an afront to God:

http://www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2005-06-07

Deliberate Childlessness: Moral Rebellion With a New Face
Tuesday, June 07, 2005

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Joe and Deb Schum of Atlanta aren't worried about baby proofing their house or buying a car seat. As a matter of fact, the couple doesn't ever intend to have children and they are proud of their childlessness. According to the newspaper's report, "the Schums are part of a growing number of couples across the country for whom kids don't factor in the marriage equation."

...

Christians must recognize that this rebellion against parenthood represents nothing less than an absolute revolt against God's design. The Scripture points to barrenness as a great curse and children as a divine gift. The Psalmist declared: "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate."

...

The Scripture does not even envision married couples who choose not to have children. The shocking reality is that some Christians have bought into this lifestyle and claim childlessness as a legitimate option. The rise of modern contraceptives has made this technologically possible. But the fact remains that though childlessness may be made possible by the contraceptive revolution, it remains a form of rebellion against God's design and order.

Couples are not given the option of chosen childlessness in the biblical revelation. To the contrary, we are commanded to receive children with joy as God's gifts, and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are to find many of our deepest joys and satisfactions in the raising of children within the context of the family. Those who reject children want to have the joys of sex and marital companionship without the responsibilities of parenthood. They rely on others to produce and sustain the generations to come.

This epidemic of chosen childlessness will not be corrected by secular rethinking. In an effort to separate the pleasure of sex from the power of procreation, modern Americans think that sex totally free from constraint or conception is their right. Children, of course, do represent a serious constraint on the life of parents. Parenthood is not a hobby, but represents one of the most crucial opportunities for the making of saints found in this life.

...

The church should insist that the biblical formula calls for adulthood to mean marriage and marriage to mean children. This reminds us of our responsibility to raise boys to be husbands and fathers and girls to be wives and mothers. God's glory is seen in this, for the family is a critical arena where the glory of God is either displayed or denied. It is just as simple as that.

The church must help this society regain its sanity on the gift of children. Willful barrenness and chosen childlessness must be named as moral rebellion. To demand that marriage means sex--but not children--is to defraud the creator of His joy and pleasure in seeing the saints raising His children. That is just the way it is. No kidding.

[Maat]

21. When I first read this article ... I was STUNNED.

Mohler is SO out there.

The trouble is ... he speaks for millions of Southern Baptists and Hardright Fundamentalists.

[salvorhardin]

7. They are not prolife

They are pro-fetus. Once the kid is delivered, all bets are off.

[Horse with no Name]

8. And by this same mindset

I guess getting a shot against polio is going to make people actively try to get polio
or tetanus
or measles
It is nothing short of CRIMINAL that there is a vaccine to stop this horrible cancer available and our government is ALLOWING the biblethumpers to deny it to women.
If they don't want to take the vaccine, simply DON'T.
But let the intelligent life forms on this planet make their own fucking decisions.

[CornField]

9. On the whole, the fundamentalists are against vaccinations

The reason is that a few are developed from aborted fetal material -- not any recent material, they are grown in fetal material from two abortions many years ago.

[Arkansas Granny]

10. For some strange reason, these people value virginity

more than they value the lives and well-being of those who they expect to maintain said virginity.

[realisticphish]

11. this is so fucking stupid

"hey, we found a cure for a form of cancer!"
"hell no, that might encourage sex!"

OK, do you really think this would be the straw that breaks the camel's back? "wow, i was going to stay abstinent, but now i can have sex and not get some obscure disease that most people have never heard of??? YAY!"

[Ian David]

12. Because Xians know that only the threat of death keeps their kids in line

They are such bad parents that unless something is potentially deadly or illegal, they can not keep their own children from doing it.

Besides, how can they stop their own Xian children from having sex when they're all so busy trying to trample the rights of non-Xians and others who disagree with them?

You can't protect your own family while simultaneously "protecting" the family!

They need cervical cancer as a baby-sitter!

Otherwise, Mom and Dad won't have time to keep gay people from getting married and hurting their children!

They should focus on their own damn families!

And what if their little virgin angel is raped by someone who has HPV?

[ComerPerro]

13. And, maybe if they remove a certain nerve center from a woman's anatomy

it will take all the pleasure out of sex, and therefore they will be encouraged to practice abstainence.

Oh, wait...

Thats been done...

[Initech]

17. I'm starting to get really sick of the "culture of life".

This is proof. Why are they "pro life" when they're against issuing a vaccine that could save lives? Fucking sick if you ask me.

[lostnfound]

18. So, a monogamous wife should be victimized by philandering husband?

It's been shown that the incidence of cervical cancer in woman is much more dependent on the number of woman her lover has slept with than the number of lovers that she has had.

Obviously there's a relationship between those two factors, but to put it another way, she is at less risk for cervical cancer if she's had 2 lovers who each had 2 lovers than if she's been monogamous for life with her philandering husband who has had sex with 10 women.

But that's what science tells us and who believes science?
:eyes:
These people are engaged in an extremely dangerous mental self-delusion. How disgusting.

[HamdenRice]

20. I was wondering why they don't also want to vaccinate boys

You raise a good point, which I have also read, which is that the incidence of cervical cancer varies with the number of partners of the male, as much or more than the female.

Just because boys can't get cervical cancer doesn't mean they should not be vaccinated because first, they are carriers of the virus and second the virus causes genital warts, which are not nice even if not deadly.

[DavidBowman]

22. Whoa

That's pretty nuts.