Ann Althouse, links to this story.
Britain's publicly owned National Health Service began offering the Cervarix vaccine to teenage girls last year, and over 1.4 million doses of the vaccine have been given out so far under the program. The virus is often transmitted through sexual intercourse and authorities wanted to give the vaccine to girls as young as 13 so they are protected by the time they become sexually active.
Althouse makes the point I've made before:
Isn't it strange how we are completely outraged by a man having sex with a 13-year-old girl and at the same time we've given up on keeping 13-year-old girls from having sex?
Cervical cancer is a serious disease, but it's not something that suddenly strikes children like polio or whooping cough. There is some conscious mind involved in the decision to have sexual intercourse. Why must the vaccine be foisted at such an early age on girls who might prefer to avoid sexual intercourse with multiple partners, at least until they are older, and who can make a decision when they are 18 whether they want the vaccine or the risk of cancer? I don't see the justification for treating young girls this way.
Leftwingers could tell you the justification. They're going to have sex anyway, so we need to give them "information" that helps them have sex. It's a perverse way of looking at it, but certainly no more perverse than Amanda Marcotte's, the barren woman who thinks the only reason parents don't want their children given an unnecessary vaccine is because they don't want to admit their kids might have sex.
Althouse is right that we're all up in arms that a 44-year-old man raping a 13-year-old is being treated as a civil rights issue by Hollywood morons, but you have to wonder if the same people would have also been ok with giving that 13-year-old Gardasil. Because, you know, they're gonna do it anyway.
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