Women's reproductive health politics, Part I

New threats to women's reproductive rights keep coming out of the woodwork: In April, researchers got one step closer to developing a vaccine that prevents Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in women. HPV is a common STD virus that is also one of the leading cause of cervical cancer in women. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide, so preventing HPV could help to reduce the number of women who become afflicted with and/or die from this disease.

Preventing cancer deaths--seems like a good idea, right? Well, not to some religious conservatives. As noted by The Nation columnist Katha Pollitt, several groups, including the Family Research Council, are not on board with the vaccine--not because they have questions about the research itself or about possible long term effects of the vaccine (these would be good questions to ask) but because they fear that such a vaccine would encourage promiscuity among unmarried girls and women. The logic goes like this: if unmarried girls and women know that the vaccine will protect them from HPV and by consequence cervical cancer, then they will all be rushing to sleep with as many people as possible. (As if fear of these diseases is what currently stops unmarried women from engaging in sex in the first place).

Now, with all the religious conservatives' talk about promoting a culture of life and such, I really want to believe that their criticism of the vaccine has something to do with actually protecting life--for instance, perhaps being concerned that the vaccine would do more harm than good to women. But this appears not to be the case. Rather, the criticism seems more like good old fashioned sexism and paternalism because it is all about wanting to control women's so-called wanton sexuality. In fact, given that religious conservatives are more concerned with controlling women's sexual behaviors than with protecting women's health and preventing cancer deaths among women, it seems that they are doing all they can to discourage a culture of life--at least when it comes to women. Scary times, indeed.