Apocalypse soon to follow...

Texas Gov. urged against cancer order - Yahoo! News

I never thought I would see the day, but I agree with Texas Governor Rick Perry on something. The apocalypse cannot be far behind.

I don't normally like government mandating much of anything, but mandatory vaccines are generally fine by me, unless there is clear evidence of adverse side effects that are worse than whatever they are vaccinating against.

Here, the adverse side effect, if I am understanding critics of the vaccine correctly, is rampant teenage fucking.

I have yet to see any particular study, or even an argument, demonstrating some likelihood that, if this vaccine becomes widely available, then we will all have to navigate through a dense gauntlet of naked adolescent flesh in flagrante delicto just to but groceries.

"Perry defended his decision, saying his fellow conservatives were wrong to worry that mandating the vaccine will trample parents' rights and promote premarital sex.

"'Providing the HPV vaccine doesn't promote sexual promiscuity any more than providing the Hepatitis B vaccine promotes drug use,' Perry said in a statement. 'If the medical community developed a vaccine for lung cancer, would the same critics oppose it claiming it would encourage smoking?'"

Do people honestly believe that, upon being administered the vaccine, young Texans will instantly shed their clothing and go at it? They can't, really. Do young Texans fell they need adult approval before doing that anyway? Of course not. Do kids even pay attention to what is being injected into them? I doubt it.

There must be some other rationale behind this opposition that has not occurred to me. The effect of the opposition, however, is clear. Women will continue to get HPV and, as a result, cervical cancer.

Answer me this, David Dewhurst, et al: why are you in favor of exposing children to the risk of HPV? I mean, if you have the tools to fight a threat, and you deny people said tools, aren't you just as culpable for the harm caused by that threat as the threat itself?

Wake the f--- up, people. People have sex. Remember when government officials told people they couldn't drink alcohol? How'd that work out? Now imagine telling a bunch of kids not to shag. If you can be honest with yourselves for even one microsecond, you'll see my point.

If one can accept the blindingly clear fact that people will have sex no matter what, the actions of a determined few to (a) deny young people education about sex and (b) deny young people the tools to do it safely are notihng less than criminal.

If you persist in opposing tools to help people protect themselves from illness, at least have the common human decency to personally visit every single HPV-positive cervical cancer patient in America to explain why your politics is more important than their lives.