Blood on their hands

Abstinence groups continue to oppose the HPV vaccine...even with new evidence that HPV infection is linked not only with cervical cancer, but lung cancer as well. (ABC News)

Their objections continue to blow my mind.

"We don't need to be vaccinating children against something that can be prevented with a behavior change," said Kimberly Martinez, executive director of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, a nonprofit group that advocates teaching children not to have sex rather than to have safe sex.

"We have to teach kids values and boundaries," she said. "If you give kids the vaccine, you're giving them a license to go have sex. It's like if you teach a kid to use a condom, you know what they're going to do with it," she said.

Listen, lady, if threats like unwanted pregnancy, AIDS, and the many other STDs with very nasty symptoms aren't stopping your kids from having unprotected sex...I seriously doubt the future risk of cervical cancer is going to stop them. Assuming they even learned what a cervix is or that they have one in their abstinence-based sex ed curriculum. What a bogus argument.

Not to mention the valid and often-repeated counterargument: even if you could ensure your kid never had sex before marriage, you couldn't ensure the same regarding his or her spouse.

Maybe these folks also oppose teens wearing seatbelts on the grounds that they encourage speeding and unsafe driving.

Well played, Brazil

The Brazilian government has a plan for fighting Amazon deforestation and AIDS simultaneously: manufacturing condoms from native Amazonian tree-rubber. (Reuters)

The scheme is hoped to "cut dependence on imported contraceptives" (the Brazilian government is the world's biggest buyer of condoms, used in AIDS prevention programs) while generating income for Amazon residents from harvesting rubber rather than cutting down trees.

Meanwhile, campus environmental groups everywhere now have a great idea for an Earth Day giveaway, if they can get their hands on some tropical tree-condoms.

A moral message from Hollywood?

Like Rick Santorum, many of us have noticed the rash of movies on the "girl goes through with unwanted pregnancy" theme. Knocked Up, Juno, Waitress, to name a few. Is there some kind of political message here? Are these movies tapping into something changing in our culture?

Nope. I'm with Christopher Orr at TNR--it's just that "girl goes through with unwanted pregnancy, with hilarious results" makes a better, tenser story than "girl has quiet abortion to terminate unwanted pregnancy" or, worse yet, "girl avoids unwanted pregnancy through the consistent use of appropriate birth control techniques."

For the good of our young people, I'd personally like to see more depiction of the realities of birth control in the movies. (Especially if they could make it as chuckle-inducing as the condom scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.) Films include sex and the crassest sexual references all the time, but how often is the use of a condom actually depicted or suggested? Do we ever see female characters use or allude to the use of oral contraceptives to prevent pregnancy within a committed relationship? No, we do not.

Sen. Vitter on "DC Madam's" call list

It's always that guy, isn't it? (WP)

• FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Vitter Statement on Protecting the Sanctity of Marriage. "This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. Senators won't do anything about it. We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts's values. I am the only Senate Candidate to coauthor the Federal Marriage Amendment; the only one fighting for its passage. I am the only candidate proposing changes to the senate rules to stop liberal obstructionists from preventing an up or down vote on issues like this, judges, energy, and on and on." stated David Vitter. [Vitter '04 campaign website]

• "June 25, 2007 (Washington, D.C.)-- U.S. Sen. David Vitter last week authored a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee expressing support for reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education Program of the Social Security Act. Twelve senators joined Vitter in writing in support of the program." [Vitter homepage]

• Christian Coalition 2004 Congressional Scorecard: David Vitter, 100% [Christian Coalition]

• "The 2004 election means a smashing victory for conservative leadership in the Senate...Rep. David Vitter ran a smashing campaign to become the first Republican in Louisiana to win a Senate seat since the Civil War. Rep. Vitter is a proven pro-family fighter who has taken on the abortion and gambling industries." [Concerned Women for America]
  

Chastity is not the name of an antiviral drug.

The hard core of the abstinence-only movement just keeps getting more and more dangerous to women's health. They've gone beyond opposing important steps to prevent the spread of HIV and other STDs both in the US and abroad, and are now opposing steps to prevent cervical cancer in young women. (NYT) Because to give young women a new cervical cancer vaccine would be to concede that, at some point in their lives, they might possibly have sex.