Playing Doctor II

Abortion. Stem cell research. The Morning After Pill. Terri Schivo. Conscience clauses for pharmacists. The Religious Right has never backed down from a fight over medical procedures that it deems to be unholy.

Now comes word that conservative Christians have a new medical target on their hit list, and are marshalling the troops against WHAT?


A) Epidurals during birth, which they claim violates God’s intention that women suffer the pains of labor as punishment for Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit.
B) In Vitro Fertilization, which often leads to the destruction and several unwanted and unused human embryos.
C) The potentially life-saving cervical cancer vaccine for teens, which they fear will undermine their sexual abstinence campaign.
D) LibiGel, a “female Viagra” for post-menopausal women, which they fear will lead women into sexual relations outside their “wifely duties.”
E) Sperm Donation, because it involves masturbation.
F) Pat Robertson’s “Pat’s Age-Defying Shake,” which they claim is an ineffective scam.



ANSWER
C: The cervical cancer vaccine. Since this vaccine protects women from a sexually transmitted virus that causes cancerous lesions on the cervix, and therefore it would be most effective if administered prior to puberty and before women become sexually active, conservative Christians fear that this vaccine will send the message to young girls that it’s okay to have sex out of wedlock — which, in the Evangelical worldview, is apparently a fate far worse than dying of cancer