An Unauthorized Reproduction

Okay, so by now most of my readership is familiar with my stance on the state of the American right. You know that I think it’s bullshit how they have allowed the far right to buy up all the planks in their proverbial platform while formulating an intrusive big government that would make any Socialist-sympathizing lefty proud. You know I’m not a fan of the Patriot Act, the DEA, or the Department of Homeland Security. There’s other stuff you know about me too, stuff that’s relatively independent of any personal political leanings. You know that I’m a rather extreme civil libertarian with a pathological aversion to government infringement on the right to personal privacy, especially as it pertains to the human body.

You also know, from my tediously attention-whoring first-ever column for DRS, that I’m a slut and willing to admit that. Why this is relevant to this column will become clear as you read on.

So it’ll come as no surprise to you that the latest piece of government-manufactured controversy over a couple of medical advancements has just gotten me really pissed off.

First up: Plan B, the newest advancement in “morning-after pill” technology. Plan B, the marketing name for the emergency contraceptive drug Levonongestrel, was recently shot down by the FDA after an initial approval for over-the-counter use put a giant burr under the saddle of the relentlessly and unforgivably ignorant religious right. The drug’s slobberingly stupid detractors pressured the Bush administration to bring the hammer down on the FDA for approving this drug, bleating that it “encourages an increase in sexual activity” and, even more cretinously, that it “counts as abortion”. Since Plan B, as its name indicates, is meant to supplement birth control already being used, many of its advocates were left scratching their heads at this pretzel logic as to how exactly the Bible-thumpers thought it would encourage more people to have sex. And the argument that Plan B “counts as abortion” is even more baffling, as its active ingredient actually prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb. But hey, when you’re the Religious Right and you have the one party that controls all three branches of the Federal government in the back pocket of the polyester doubleknit Haband slacks you bought off an order form you found at the back of the Readers Digest, you don’t HAVE to make sense.

I realize at this point in this column I should acknowledge that I am failing to be objective about the religious right in every way, shape and form, and that I don’t plan on even TRYING to look at this issue from their point of view. If this offends you, you probably don’t even want to bother with the rest of the column because this is were I REALLY get pissed off at them and accuse them of being evil and refusing to abide by the teachings of Christ. Really.

Because the second attack they’ve mounted in the past few weeks is actually against a medical breakthrough that some researchers are heralding as nothing short of miraculous. If you’re wondering why medical researchers, a stubbornly secular and skeptical bunch by nature, would dare to use the quasi-religious and subjective term “miraculous”, consider this: clinical trials of a new vaccine have proven 100% successful.  Since a 100% success rate in medical tests tends to occur less often than the appearance of Haley’s Comet, it is deemed a miracle by people who as a rule do not believe in miracles.

So why are the religious right trying to block the use of this “miracle” vaccine?

Because it happens to be a vaccine against the human papilloma virus, a common and persistent germ that is traditionally sexually transmitted. Papilloma causes genital warts which are easily treated, but it is also nearly 100% implicated in cervical cancer, the second-deadliest cancer that occurs in American women.  Public health advocates greeted the news of the vaccine by vigorously lobbying the government to make it a routine part of childhood vaccination schedules, because its efficacy is contingent upon being given early in life, i.e., at age thirteen or earlier.

This is the part where the religious right, as previously stated, stepped in to represent the forces of darkest and most odious evil.

“You can’t give this vaccine to children,” they sniveled. “It encourages children to think about having sex, because it is a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease!”

Can’t you just think of it as insurance?” baffled public health advocates countered. “After all, it effectively wipes out the leading cause of a very deadly form of cancer.”

“No, no,” the religious right screeched, stamping its cheaply-shod feet. “The only insurance needed against this kind of disease is to teach children to fear sex and avoid it under all circumstances. This vaccine will undermine the message of the abstinence-only sex education program we worked so hard to strong-arm Bush into implementing.”

“But accidents happen,” the public health advocates tried. “People have sex, and the abstinence-only sex education campaign has been statistically linked to INCREASED sexual activity in teens. It also spreads a calculated message of disinformation geared towards making children frightened of sex and ashamed of biologically based urges that can’t be stopped because they are part of life, but that’s a whole other tirade.”

“If women are having sex they deserve what they get!” the religious right frothed. “Cancer is a good way to teach them a lesson! The damned, dirty sluts! The evil, diseased whores! They all deserve to die, die, die!”

Okay, so I added that last part for dramatic effect – the religious right hasn’t actually said that anyone deserves to die for having sex.  Well, not in public debate on this particular vaccine, anyway. Yet. But you get my point.

Jesus Christ, the so-called perfect example, the alleged living embodiment of Godliness whose teachings these sanctimonious, small-minded jerks claim they adhere to and live by, taught tolerance. He was also a healer who eradicated diseases and encouraged his followers to do the same. I’d like to think that he’d want pubescent girls – like, say, MY KID as one example – to have a fighting chance against a preventable disease.

I’m not gonna sit here and say that I can speak for Jesus, and I’m also not saying that I’m the best example of a virtuous woman. But I do think it bears pointing out that his most famous female follower, Mary Magdalene, was a woman of questionable virtue herself – and Jesus never once tried to hold that against her, or wished disease upon her for whatever real or imagined transgressions she’d committed. If I were Him I’d be irritated as hell at the words these “good Christians” are attempting to put in His mouth.

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