Newsflash: Jesus Wants You to Die of Cancer

Yes, my little children. Every time teen-age girls have sex, that makes baby Jesus cry. So, some wise souls in Australia have decided that they'd rather watch their daughters die an excruciating death from cervical cancer than allow them access to a simple vaccine.

We learn of this prima facie evidence of misogynist patriarchy via the ever-trenchant Twisty, who, not surprisingly, has her own gentle take on it:

Godbags naturally default to slut-punishing mode when encountering scary science that might help to confer human status on women. The myth of female virtue is the cornerstone of patriarchy. A pussy unpoliced will lead to hard drugs, communism, homosexuality, rampant stuffing of newborns into trash cans, and what have you.

Damn, I hate it when Twisty's to polite to come out and say what she really means.

Yes, this is really happening, and not in some scary place like Iran or Pakistan. No, this is Australia, where apparently they have their own Aussie-variety Theocrats. Said Theocrats, of course, being the ones who would rather lose their daughters in a cancer ward than have them lose their souls to the satanic cesspool that is pre-marital sex.

Gah. You still have no idea what I'm talking about, do you. Sorry. My bad. Here's the scoop: cervical cancer kills something like 5000 women a year in the US, with (natch) a disproportionately higher rate in the post-colonial world. I imagine the incidence and mortality figures in Australia are something like ours.

So now, those clever scientists in their white lab coats have come up with a vaccine that appears to be 100% effective in preventing infection by the viruses that appear to cause cervical cancer. You would think this would be a good thing, yes?

Well, no, apparently not if you're talking about women. Women who might have sex. Women who [horrors] might even have pre-marital sex. These epidemiological geniuses down under have decided that rotting to death of cancer is a fit punishment for better than suffering the indignities of pre-marital sex:

Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council said, “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”

Oh, wait, sorry. That was here in the US. Can't let the Aussies have all the fun.

See, here's the deal. HPV, the virus that appears to cause cervical cancer, is insanely wide-spread. Something like 20,000,000 in the US are estimated to have it, but most are asymptomatic, and never even know they're infected. So they can pass it on to lots of other folk. So, what you want is for girls (men get it too, but it's overwhelmingly women who die from the resulting cancer) to be vaccinated before they become sexually active.

Which means, seeing as most girls aren't going to blithely let you know "Oh, by the way, Mom, Doug and I are planning on going all the way pretty soon" over milk and cookies, you need to get them vaccinated well before they're likely to become sexually active. Like around nine.

Now, I'm not immune to getting a little creeped out by that--being as the Evil Genius Girl is currently ten--but you know what? I was pretty fucking creeped out bmeconiumum and shitty diapers, but I dealt with it because it was my job as a parent to take care of my fucking kids.

But no. Not only do some people think that HPV vaccine shouldn't be made mandatory,* they would like to see it not be available in the first place:

Senator Joyce said the decision whether to approve the vaccine should not be left to the TGA [Aussiequivalentnt of the FDA]...There might be an overwhelming (public) backlash from people saying, 'don't you dare put something out there that gives my 12-year-old daughter licensece to be promiscuous'," he said.

Oh, that's the part I like: "don't you dare put something out there." I mean, the Aussies aren't even talking about making this shit mandatory. No, they just want to make it available, and this Crocodile Dundee Theocrat says that's too damn bad, pre-martial sex makes baby Jesus cry, no life-saving vaccine for you.

And, please: "a license to be promiscuous?" I can just see it:

So, Babs--did you and Mickey, you know, "do it" last night?
No way, Marge. I'm much too worried about HPV and the risk of cervical cancer.
Silly girl--there's a vaccine for that now!
Hot Dawg! First stop, the free clinic, next stop, boy's locker room...

Yeah, because HPV is the only thing holding Babs back from teen age sex--not pregnancy, not her personal morals, not HIV, not STDs, not fear of being taken advantage of, not an understanding that she's not ready for sex yet, not parental disapproval, not being gay, not the bazillion other constraints on young women's sexuality, no--the only thing stopping Babs from becoming the promiscuous little tart that Senator Joyce secretly fears all four of his daughters will become is HPV. Like a thin red line between sweet, innocent little school girls and Race Music.

All of which ties into the idiocy of anti-contraception forces, the anti-sex-ed forces, the FDA 's unconscionablwithholdingng of over-the-counter approval of Plan B (which means that people are driving to the Catholic nation of motherfucking Mexico to get their contraceptives), abstinence-only education--what else? How much anti-sex, anti-woman idiocy have I failed to mention?

The upshot, of course, is that it's really about controlling women's bodies. I mean, I used to believe that in a grad-school-postmoderist-abstract sort of way, but no. No, my friends, it really is about controlling women's bodies. It's not about preventing abortion, it's not about preventing teen pregnancy. It's about trying to scare or coerce women into not having unsanctioned sex (that is, sex that falls outside the control of a husband, and thus thpatrilineagege), or if that fails, to punish them for having had unsanctioned sex. With unwanted pregnancies or--it appears--with potentially fatal cancers.

No, what the above does tell us that these people do not have women's best interests at heart. Or, in the unlikely case that they even think that they do (that is, they honestly believe it's better to die of cancer than to have premarital sex), they don't have the courage to admit it out loud. Probably because they know how batshit fucking crazy it would sound.

So, it's not about the babies--I covered that last week. But here's the kicker--it's not about the bible or baby Jesus, either. The bible is pretty much mum on abortion. Yes, I know that there are a lot of things that could be interpreted as being against abortion, but there are a) a lot of things that could be interpreted to mean a whole shitload of things, and b) there are a whole, whole lot of things that don't need to be interpreted--upon which the Bible is quite clear--that are completely ignored by the Christian Right.**

Like, ferinstance, there's the standard anti-Leviticus rant (shellfish, doves, when to have your daughter killed on your doorstep, etc.). But more currently, how about this: it seems that at least a few evangelicals are starting to wake up to the notion that their movement to "spread the good news" has been hijacked by bigots andemagogueses, and they're noticing that while the bigots andemagogueses are doing alright on the sex-hatred thing, they're kinda letting the "whatsover you do to the least of my brothers" thing slide a bit.

Now, the bigots andemagogueses aren't about to take this lying down. In the above-linked article, the VP of Focus on the Family tells us that he's not devoting any time to feeding the multitudes and healing the sick because "Most evangelicals today are concerned with the much more basic issues of marriage and family."

Come again? The bible is silent on abortion, and virtually silent on homosexuality.*** Christ himself is absolutely silent on both counts, but he is both explicit and enthusiastic about feeding the poor. I could go off on this, but we all know the truth: Jesus was a socialist. If Jesus saw you drive up to the anti-Gay marriage rally in your SUV and your $300 Gucci shoes, he'd probably smack the shit out of you and tell you to sell the SUV, give your shoes to a homeless guy, and then get your ass into a soup kitchen and fucking well stay there. Iin a divinely gentle and compassionate way, of course.

So, it's not about the babies--I covered that last week. And it's sure as fuck not about the bible, because if these folks were seriously concerned with carrying out Jesus' instructions, they'd be all about feeding the poor, healing the sick, selling their possessions, tearing their cloaks in two, what have you. Yeah, they might eventually get around to abortion and homosexuality, but in a "after a grueling but deeply satisfying day of feeding the poor and other activities that Christ clearly commanded us to do, let's idly discuss the other things that Christ may have wanted us to do before we fall asleep exhausted from carrying out the Lord's will only to wake up and spend another day distributing bread and medicine to the least of our brothers" sort of way.

So I have to go with Twisty on this one. It's about the fucking patriarchy.

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*Leaving aside the whole issue of mandatory vaccines. Let's just say that assuming mandatory vaccines are a good idea, HPV should probably be one of them.

**Ever notice how when the Bible says what they want to hear, they say "It's in the Bible, the literal word of God, and no interpretation is necessary or allowable!" But when their petty hatreds and prejudices aren't backed up by scripture, they say "It's clear from a careful reading and interpretation of the scripture that God's intent was blah blablah blah..."

***Yes, I know the passages that are trotted out against homosexuality. But they are squat compared to what the bible has to say about things like how to pray, our obligations to the poor, how to love one another, how to forgive, etc., etc., Read the anti-Leviticus rant if you don't believe me. Then come back and make your comments.