It's Not Just Religious Conservatives Who Oppose Mandatory HPV Vaccination

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By Suzanne Nelson (about the author) Page 4 of 4 page(s)

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Yet, at its core, the argument for mandatory use is really about something else. It was recently summed up aptly, if inadvertently, by Joe Kernan, anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. He moderated a segment last month on whether Gardasil should be mandated. He said:

"Parents aren't necessarily going to do the right thing. They might not even ... they might space. They might not take the time to get this done. There's a lot of reasons this wouldn't be done. Shouldn't we just do it with the kids, get it out of the way, no one gets cervical cancer?"

If only it were that simple. His essential point -- that parents are too stupid or too lazy to figure out this issue for themselves and thus the government should step in -- highlights a consistent criticism conservatives have about liberals. So perhaps it's not surprising that conservative groups have argued that mandating the HPV vaccine isn't the government's place.

But looked at another way, ultimately this is about an intrusive government versus one that doesn't meddle in the affairs of women's bodies. That's a principle progressives usually fall all over themselves to support.

The protracted debate about whether the HPV vaccine will make adolescent kids more likely to have sex is largely irrelevant. If some parents decide that possibility is reason enough to forgo the shot, however, isn't such their right -- regardless how foolish others may think their reasoning?

Linda Klepacki of Focus on the Family replied to Kernan's remarks with a simple statement: "Parents have the right to be the decision-makers for their children, especially when it comes to medicine."

Indeed.

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Suzanne Nelson is a freelance journalist and writer living in New Orleans. She spent five years covering Congress for Roll Call Newspaper in Washington, D.C., and now focuses on subjects pertaining to (more...)

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