Catholic school board votes tonight whether to suspend HPV vaccinations

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I read this story in yesterday's online Toronto Star about a Catholic (but publicly funded... and don't get me started on that) school board near me:

Providing the HPV vaccine to Grade 8 girls in its schools sends a "contradictory" message to Catholic students and should end, says a motion before Halton's Catholic board from its vice-chair.

Joanne Matters' motion, to be voted on at the board's meeting tomorrow, revives a debate that hasn't been in the news for almost a year, when Catholic boards across the province grappled with how to handle the controversy around the new vaccine.

This debate isn't even over whether they have the money for the vaccine.  It's provided free-of-charge to the school boards by the province.

They're worried about sending a "contradictory" message to young girls, but apparently they have no problem with the message that says, "we supposedly care about your well-being, but we also want to make the likelihood that you will die if you disobey us as high as possible."

If all the other arguments against public funding of religious schools somehow aren't enough, I think when any group demonstrates that they're willing to pay for the promotion of their particular version of morality with human life, we have gone well beyond the point where the general public should be subsidizing them.

Makes me mad...

Edit: on re-reading my post, I think I should add that if anyone feels like moving it to the Snark & Rant section, I wouldn't be adverse to that.   

[Darlica]

 

Doctors should decide these kind of things not school boards...

And for F***'s sake even Catholic grow up and occasionally get married and have sex within wedlock or does the school board want to prohibit that too?

Or do they think that HPV doesn't infect married people?

Arrrgh!

[Sibling Chatty]

The world's largest and oldest continual Patriarchy deems itself eminently able to handle issues of women's health. After all, women are mere property, right??

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Darlica, the aspergillum that the priest uses during the wedding ceremony is filled with an anti-viral agent that kills HPV, so if you get married in a Catholic Church and wait until you're married to have sex, you're safe.  


no... not really...

But even if that were the case, I don't see the logic behind their position.

When I got vaccinated for tetanus when I was a kid, I didn't take that as tacit endorsement of playing with rusty blades.

My parents drilled into me that I should always wear my seatbelt.  I never once assumed that by doing so, they meant that I should go out and drive recklessly.

And even if a girl does have sex before marriage, it's her right to do so.  It may not be what the Church wants, but it's still completely her prerogative.

They're worried about putting ideas in the head of grade 8 girls?  Well, IMO, if there actually is any 14-year-old girl out there who has had so little guidance in her upbringing that an injection would make any difference at all in her moral outlook, then there's a definite need for her to get it.

[Darlica]

I'm with you all the way!

[pieces o nine]

These kinds of stories (1) enrage and (2) weary me.

If present at the farce of a hearing, I am one who would rise and query the board whether a 'virgin bride' who learns that she has contracted HPV from her husband  may sue them individually and collectively for her medical bills...

[beagle]

I suppose if you believe this life is just a brief rehearsal for the real thing, and that you need a full set of good behaviour stamps to get to the main performance, then it's not quite so irrational. Not a view I subscribe to though.

[Swatopluk]

There would be justifiable reasons for the school not to be involved in that particular vaccination (especially if mandatory).
There has not yet been realistic long-time testing (e.g. whether the elimination of the strains of papilloma the vaccine works against will lead to even more dangerous strains taking over).
The given reason is something different and in the same category as "do not inform them about STDs because sin's reward must be suffering and death" as applied in the past (also by the Anglican church, named the order that made the army rot by Kipling*).


*

Hast thou forgotten when the order came across the seas that rotted out the armies of the English with us, so that soldiers fell sick by the hundred where but ten had sickened before?

in One view of the question
(referring to a religiously inspired order to close the controlled brothels thus requiring soldier to either abstain or catch STDs from uncontrolled hookers. The problem was exacerbated by bans of marrying local women and discouragement of "white women" import. What Kipling wrote about the bishop responsible is not for the faint of heart)

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

There would be justifiable reasons for the school not to be involved in that particular vaccination (especially if mandatory).
There has not yet been realistic long-time testing (e.g. whether the elimination of the strains of papilloma the vaccine works against will lead to even more dangerous strains taking over).

The vaccination's not mandatory now; parents can choose to opt their daughters out of it.  But if the justification were as you describe (and they could substantiate that the potential for harm outweighs the real benefits), I could probably accept it.

The background statement that the trustee putting forward the motion gave can be found on page 18 of the meeting report PDF.  She makes an oblique reference to a study by an epidemiologist, but then goes on to state that the overwhelming issue surrounding the vaccinations is the "message" it sends to students.

The given reason is something different and in the same category as "do not inform them about STDs because sin's reward must be suffering and death" as applied in the past (also by the Anglican church, named the order that made the army rot by Kipling*).

I wonder how they reconcile their position on HPV vaccination with the argument the Catholic Church presents against abortion, in which they place the value of human life (as they define it) above just about everything else in existence... yet here, place its value below the slim potential for the vaccination to lead students "astray", despite the strong "abstinence is the only way" message that they receive everywhere else.

[Swatopluk]

Marrying and having children is only the second and inferior option for Roman Catholics. According to RCC theology it would be better, if nobody would have sex at all. The ideal for those not strong enough to become monks/nuns is the Joseph Marriage, i.e. total abstinence while being married.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josefsehe (there seems to be no English entry).
If turned barren by disease, sex should discontinue anyway (although the church now grudgingly tolerates barren intramarital sex).
Don't forget, the church bans condoms even if the woman lacks an uterus.

[Sibling Chatty]

Which brings to mind the old Italian Catholic joke about the family with 7 kids, one every year, and then suddenly, no more.

You can fill in the gaps, but the punch line is "The Church?? Listen, buddy, if you don't play the game, you don't make the rules!!"

[pieces o nine]

Swato, have you read anything by Uta Ranke Heinemann? I've enjoyed her books thoroughly and turned to them many times for fact-checking and information on documents to read further, when dealing with a rabid, blind-faith RC apologist.

[Swatopluk]

I have read two or three of her books. Her polemics tend to get the better of her quite often though. It's definitely a good starting point but I would not totally rely on her. A better footnoting would also help because I found it difficult to find the primary texts she refers to based on her description alone.

[Alpaca]

What ideas like this or abstinence-only so-called "sex ed" are completely overlooking is the fact that if teenagers want to have sex, they will. If the unavailability of a condom is no obstacle to having sex, (I grant that the kids at my school are morons, but that trend is wide-spread, unfortunately), then you aren't gonna hear, "Sorry, baby, but my Catholic school denied me access to the HPV vaccine, so I'm saving myself for Mr. Right" anytime soon.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

"Sorry, baby, but my Catholic school denied me access to the HPV vaccine, so I'm saving myself for Mr. Right"

Which excludes the possibility of 'Mr. Right' having any kind of prior 'experimentation'...