3274 The HPV Vaccination Debate

The religious parents who are objecting to the HPV vaccination on the belief it will encourage promiscuity need to rethink what they know about sexuality, viruses, and human behavior. Yes, you can teach your daughter your standards and ethics when she is an eleven year old middle schooler, but that control and information will not extend to the man she marries 15 years from now. She could be a pure as the driven snow, absolutely faithful to your standards, a wonderful godly woman. But she meets and marries a man, let's say a future Calvinist pastor, who didn't have your standards before his conversion to Christ a few years before he met your daughter. You would risk your daughter developing cancer in middle age through no action of her own because of what you objected to when she was in middle school? Or let's say, she's the one who slips up. I know, I know. You can't imagine that she'd ever be willful or commit a sin (God doesn't grade on a curve, you understand). But it could happen, and that pesky virus might stick around for many years to develop genital warts and then cervical cancer. Wise up, religious parents. Protect your daughters. This is not birth control pills or condoms handed out with a wink and a nod for next week's prom. This is a vaccine for a life time of protection.