Gardasil article author Rev. Roland De Vries seems to have confused a public health program – namely the prevention of human papilloma virus infection by a vaccine – with a license to engage in “unprotected sexual contact.”
Human papilloma virus is a cause of cervical cancer. Yes, one can have a greater chance of acquiring the virus if one has unprotected intercourse with multiple sexual partners, but women can be exposed to it after marriage – by just one partner. Furthermore, the vaccine does not protect against a host of other sexually transmitted diseases – some of which can cause permanent sterility and others of which could cause death. It is therefore, patently absurd and false to suggest that this vaccination program “… is intended to allow a very specific form of behaviour while mitigating the harm that might otherwise result from it.” No public health worker, for even a moment, is going to be recommending unprotected sexual contact on the basis of a person having received Gardasil. Such a recommendation would be contrary to all public health thinking on this subject.
To deny young women the protection of a simple vaccine that can prevent a deadly form of cancer because of how this might lead them to behave smacks of the worst kind of paternalism that I had hoped had vanished long ago – especially among our clergy.
