One Less

A commercial came out a few years back that had pre-pubescent little girls playing jump rope and chanting "o-n-e-l-e-s-s-I-wanna-be-one-less."  One less what?  One less cervical cancer statistic.  The commercial is for Gardisil, the vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus ("HPV"), which causes cervical cancer.  HPV is sexually transmitted, and the best time to vaccinate against it is before a person becomes sexually active.  A vaccine to prevent cancer is a good thing, right?  Not necessarily.  Not if you're a bible-waiving, right wing, fundamentalist, history revisionist, scientifically uneducated fucktard. 

The teahadists recently hosted a debate of the current Repugnantcan candidates.  It was like nails on a chalkboard at a farting contest.  It was awful.  I don't know if they were trying to demonstrate who was the most stupid, who had the least understanding of US history and government, or who could blather the most anti-abortion bullshit while demonstrating the most utter contempt for those who are already here.  At one point in the debate, the issue came up of Gov. Rick Perry's executive order mandating Gardisil vaccines for all sixth-grade girls in Texas.  These are girls who are around twelve years old - girls who, under ordinary circumstances, are not yet sexually active.  These are girls who would benefit the most from the vaccine.   Michele Batshit Bachmann Batshit (hereinafter referred to as "Batshit") went, well, batshit.  After spending a great portion of the so-called debate nattering about "those poor little girls," and "government mandated vaccines" (she's against it), Batshit goes on national TV the next morning flat-out lying.  You can read it here.  

I guess someone forgot to tell Batshit that the state governments have been mandating vaccines since at least 1965.  I'm reasonably certain that it goes back farther than that, as my parents - baby boomers - were vaccinated.  Someone also forgot to tell Batshit that parents can be exempted from vaccinating their children on certain grounds.  The funny part, though, was how she went on and on about "those poor little girls." The way she went at it, one would think those poor little girls were being held down and gang raped by the Texas Aggie yell leaders.  Christ on the crapper.  What about the poor adult woman who develops cervical cancer twenty years from now because Batshit and her ilk blocked a sixth-grader's access to a vaccine that would have prevented cancer? 

Batshit and the moral brigade are in a tizzy because the vaccine prevents cancer of the female reproductive system that is caused by a virus that is sexually transmitted.  I guess they think every woman who has ever been exposed to HPV is some sort of shameless hussy who indiscriminately banged every frat rat on frat row and liked it.  They have some sort of twisted idea that vaccinating against a sexually transmitted disease will somehow cause chaste, virgin, future bible beaters to turn into insatiable sluts.  There are a lot of factors they don't take into account.  Being a chaste, bible beating bitch does not, in and of itself, shield a woman from sexually transmitted diseases.  She could be raped and exposed to who knows what, up to and including HIV.  She might be chaste, but what if her husband's a whore dog?  The self-righteous right-wingers never look at the entire picture.  They're only interested in cramming their own personal version of piety down everyone else's throats.  While they're busy trying to block access to vaccine and discourage parents from getting their daughters vaccinated, if a causal link between HPV and prostate cancer was ever determined, the same bunch of fuckers would make the vaccine a sacrament. 

Ironic, isn't it, how a certain segment of our society spends so much time obsessing over a fetus, but doesn't care one bit about that fetus once it draws its first breath of air?  Infuriating, isn't it, how that same segment of our society wants to control every uterus and every aspect of every uterus, including keeping women from preventing their uterus from becoming cancerous?  Maddening, isn't it, that people actually vote these fuckers into positions of power?