ancientjaguar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_kishiria) wrote2007-02-05 02:05 pm
lady_kishiria) wrote2007-02-05 02:05 pm
Entry tags:
A reason NOT to move to Texas
I grant, there are a few, but this one is new.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16975112/wid/11915773?GT1=9033
The governor there is demanding that all schoolgirls receive the new HPV vaccine. Now, I've been hoping for this vaccination for years and was overjoyed when it came out although AFAIK I'm too old to receive it. However, some politician telling parents that their daughter MUST have it sets every civil-liberties alarm in my mind to screaming.
People are arguing that it's no different than the smallpox, polio, and measles vaccines. Some parents would argue that making those mandatory impinges on their rights to raise their children, and since I've read some scary things on those vaccines I must say I'm undecided.
There is one clear difference between the above mentioned diseases and Gardasil. Those diseases are transmitted through air, water (such as in a swimming pool), or touching something an infected person has touched. HPV is usually (not always) sexually transmitted, and this has further implications to parents.
I come from a Latino family where, even Americanized as they were, my purity was very much the pillar of the family's "honour". (This, by the way, is where my much-discussed hatred of the whole concept of "honour" comes from.) I know my parents, my mother especially, would have objected to the implication that I'd be sleeping around at the age of 11. Where would my parents' rights over me be?
I know that when I was 11, the idea of being forced to have this vaccine would have outraged and upset me. I was a very pious child, with further complications stemming from an obvious case of sexual identity dysphoria, and I would have seen the clear implications that they were expecting I'd do "it" with a boy. Where would MY rights to my own body be?
Lastly, the vaccine has only been on the market a few months, so it's unknown if there are any side effects. Some should be expected; even the standard ones have them. That in and of itself would make me as a parent hesitant to have my daughter innoculated.
When I first heard of the vaccine, I pictured it as something older teens and young women would take voluntarily. Making it mandatory for middle-school girls feels like violation, not liberation. From Gardasil it's a short jump to birth control, and while I support making birth control easily available to all who need it, making it mandatory would be disgusting and wrong.
It took a while to fully articulate why this story bothers me so much. I'm looking forward to whatlibertarianhawk in particular has to say about it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16975112/wid/11915773?GT1=9033
The governor there is demanding that all schoolgirls receive the new HPV vaccine. Now, I've been hoping for this vaccination for years and was overjoyed when it came out although AFAIK I'm too old to receive it. However, some politician telling parents that their daughter MUST have it sets every civil-liberties alarm in my mind to screaming.
People are arguing that it's no different than the smallpox, polio, and measles vaccines. Some parents would argue that making those mandatory impinges on their rights to raise their children, and since I've read some scary things on those vaccines I must say I'm undecided.
There is one clear difference between the above mentioned diseases and Gardasil. Those diseases are transmitted through air, water (such as in a swimming pool), or touching something an infected person has touched. HPV is usually (not always) sexually transmitted, and this has further implications to parents.
I come from a Latino family where, even Americanized as they were, my purity was very much the pillar of the family's "honour". (This, by the way, is where my much-discussed hatred of the whole concept of "honour" comes from.) I know my parents, my mother especially, would have objected to the implication that I'd be sleeping around at the age of 11. Where would my parents' rights over me be?
I know that when I was 11, the idea of being forced to have this vaccine would have outraged and upset me. I was a very pious child, with further complications stemming from an obvious case of sexual identity dysphoria, and I would have seen the clear implications that they were expecting I'd do "it" with a boy. Where would MY rights to my own body be?
Lastly, the vaccine has only been on the market a few months, so it's unknown if there are any side effects. Some should be expected; even the standard ones have them. That in and of itself would make me as a parent hesitant to have my daughter innoculated.
When I first heard of the vaccine, I pictured it as something older teens and young women would take voluntarily. Making it mandatory for middle-school girls feels like violation, not liberation. From Gardasil it's a short jump to birth control, and while I support making birth control easily available to all who need it, making it mandatory would be disgusting and wrong.
It took a while to fully articulate why this story bothers me so much. I'm looking forward to what
libertarianhawk in particular has to say about it.
no subject
As it is, the whole cervical cancer vaccine issue also touches a nerve with me, as my mom had cervical cancer when I was very young, and she ended up having to get a full hysterectomy to remove it. (Take that, idiot fundies who think that only promiscuous women get/should get it!) Even though it's not hereditary, I still worry a little that I might get it eventually. Where was this vaccine a few years ago or so when I was still in the recommended age window and before I first became sexually active?
Maybe it's just me, but I honestly don't see what is so wrong with the idea in theory, lobbying and lack of testing aside (both of which I'll agree leave me on the semi-tentative side). Kids are already required to get a whole bunch of other vaccines for school, aren't they? Nobody seems to complain about those. It's just another shot that girls have to get, that's all. As it is, they've been saying on the news that parents can choose to opt out of it for various reasons (including religious reasons), so I don't see why there's an uproar over the whole idea that they're being "forced" into it.