Robyn Urback on the HPV vaccine: What’s worse than pre-marital sex? Cancer. That’s what

Robyn Urback on HPV vaccination and opposition by Catholic leaders:

Yet according to a letter penned by Church leaders and distributed to parents of children enrolled Calgary’s Catholic school board, the medical efficacy of the HPV vaccine is still up for debate.

“There is no consensus among those involved in public health in Canada that HPV vaccination is the most prudent strategy in terms of allocating health care resources to address the goal of preventing deaths resulting from cervical cancer,” according to the bishops’ mendacious claim. “We encourage parents to learn the medical facts.”

The bulk of the letter is not concerned with medical facts, however, but rather the propensity for such a vaccination to encourage pre-marital sex. “A school-based approach to vaccination sends a message that early sexual intercourse is allowed, as long as one uses ‘protection,’” the bishops write. “We…would prefer to equip [young people] for proper decision-making.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that while the HPV vaccine has proven nearly 100% effective in preventing cervical precancers caused by four strains of HPV, Catholic teaching over the past, oh, 2000 years, has proven considerably less effective in preventing pre-marital sex. Indeed, equipping young people for “proper decision-making,” prevents neither pre-marital sex, nor HPV infection. It simply leaves young people who have the misfortune of dogmatic-minded guardians at particular risk of catching an infection proven to lead to certain types of cancers.

Robyn Urback on the HPV vaccine: What’s worse than pre-marital sex? Cancer. That’s what