This also drives me crazy

Dan Damon just interviewed a public health official on Britain's plan to vaccinate all girls in the UK against HPV - which causes cervical cancer. (Yay for them!) He wound up the story by inviting people to the website to discuss the vaccination "and the moral issues raised."

Here's the moral issue: we can prevent a group of people from getting cancer. Period.

What's the argument against it? "Oooooo - it might make girls think promiscuity is okay!"

Do you actually know anyone who stayed a virgin because she was afraid of catching cervical cancer? Does anyone?

If pregnancy, AIDS, syphilis, herpes, a reputation as a slut, parents' disapproval, and hellfire don't stop them, will the rather arcane threat of cervical cancer do it? And will you (you moralists who are objecting to it) pay for the cancer treatment of a nice young terrified Christian bride who gets HPV from her "boys will be boys" husband (or, perhaps, her born-again, newly redeemed, ex-bad-boy-now-forgiven husband) on her wedding night - and get down on your knees to apologize for not preventing her disease? What if your daughter is raped? Why don't you just rev up the old lying-for-Jesus line and tell your 12-year-old that this shot is for something else? Or even not tell her what it's for at all, just "routine". But no.

Seriously, some people would rather put their daughters at risk for cancer than give them a vaccine which makes sex safer.

The logical end of this is, in fact, killing them while they're still innocent.

And they claim the moral high ground? I don't think so.