Thursday, October 18, 2007
FUZZY CATHOLIC THINKING
David Helwig, writing for SooToday.com, objects to the decision of the Huron Superior District Catholic School Board to reject the HPV vaccine for students in the system.
Isn't it really all about money, David? After all, the vaccine is available to any parent who wants to procure it for their child. Just check with the pediatrician. There is no reason that the Catholic school should compromise Catholic principles to make this vaccine available free to you.
But, you argue, "outside the school setting" parents taking advantage of the availability of the vaccine are "comparatively very low and many of those who would benefit from the vaccine will not come forward." Who made you the keeper of other parents' children? Certainly your position is not a Catholic position.
You claim the vaccine has "Very few adverse effects...to date, primarily soreness at the injection site". Uhmmm, not hardly. You should read my blog.
Your comparison of this vaccine to the Hepatitis B vaccine, and then the suggestion that this vaccine is being banned because only females need it, boggles the mind. Where did you get such a strange notion? One would hope your Catholic female children would actually need neither one. But then maybe they don't actually practice their faith. Have you taught them to practice it?
I have no idea at all why you brought pap smears into this discussion. Virgin schoolgirls do not get pap smears.
You do bring up one interesting point. Why is this vaccine being given only to girls? Since transmission is sexual, why isn't the male, who presumably also enjoys the benefits of pre-marital sex, not also receiving it? Isn't it reasonable to assume that he would not want to transmit a life-threatening disease to his sexual partner? Is the schoolboy being encouraged to be irresponsible with this decision? As with pregnancy, it seems that the female is the only sexual partner who has something to lose from pre-marital sex, and thus like birth control, it is being marketed to females who must then assume all the risks of the dangerous side effects, while their male sexual partner, if they intend to have one, gets off scott free.
