Sexaphobia
Burlington's Catholic school board has formally decided against providing space for public health nurses to give out shots to immunize against the HPV to Grade 8 Students. HPV has no known cure or treatment, and has been called a "necessary step" in the formation of cervical cancer by the American Cancer Society, as well as cancers of the mouth, throat, penis and anus. Cervical cancer often leads to infertility, and frequently leads to death. Over 400 Canadians will die of Cervical Cancer this year.
Why would any warm-blooded school administrator wish to increase the risk of such fates to their students? It's simple - because HPV is spread through sex, and the Catholic faith declares sex outside of marriage to be a sin. The Catholic board has a strict policy of abstainence when it comes to sex education, and it feels that allowing such vaccinations to take place would undermine that.
This kind of logic, frankly, boils my blood.
It wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager in this region, and I knew many Catholic school kids from Burlington. They made bunny rabbits seem abstainant. I know many people to this day who were former students of Catholic schools, all the way to the old-time English sort run by nuns. None of these people are Catholic today, and most are not even Christian. The more young people I talk to about religion, the more people I find turning away from Christianity, specifically for these types of issues. Sexual "morality" (especially of the anti-sex, anti-gay sorts) may be a hot-button issue for religious fundamentalists, but nearly everyone beyond that fringe can see a host of more crucial issues - poverty, war, famine, environmental destruction and many others, which the Church constantly ignores so that it can continue it's crusades against condoms in schools or gay marriages.
Abstainence education doesn't work. Abstainence, as a birth control strategy, fails far more often than condoms. Teenagers are some of the horniest creatures on this planet, and unfortunately sexual arousal tends to diminish rational thinking and risk assessment. This is why the US, with it's "just say no" policies on sex education has 6-9 times the teen pregnancy rates of Western Europe, with their frank and open notions on birth control. This is why liberal northern US states have lower teen pregnancy rates and STI rates than the south, and it is why, despite remarkably similar rates of sexual activity, Catholic high schools in Ontario show higher rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections than public schools. The notion that all sex before marriage should be condemned is based in the religious ideology, clearly not reflected by the views of most Canadians. As my old anthropology prof liked to remind us, only 5% of human societies forbid sex out of wedlock, anyways. If that's their belief, as a religion, then they can keep to it themselves, if they wish, but to limit options in schools which are paid for by our tax dollars, then they're making choices for us. This issue should raise many issues about how we fund Catholic schools, and not Anglican, Muslim or Buddhist schools.
Most grade 8 students are not in a position to choose to go to a public school. Most 13 and 14 year olds are only beginning to grasp the great questions of religion, a personal choice which many people take whole lifetimes to decide upon. While many 13 year old girls may not be "interested" in sex at the moment, to expect them all to reach the age of marriage without gaining said interest is purely unrealistic. Kids make mistakes, and teenagers aren't going to stop having sex because grown-ups told them to. And most importantly, even if this good catholic girl does abstain until marriage, and even if her husband has only ever had one other sexual partner (in a committed, years-long relationship), the risk is still there, and it would be a real shame for her to become infertile, or die as a result. If her husband cheats on her, the risk is there. And if she is raped, the risk is there. To remove the option of a vaccination that may save her life because of anti-sex ideology is cold-hearted and vindictive.
Sex is a fact of life. If it weren't one of the most compelling drives we have, there wouldn't be billions of us on the planet right now, and billions more on the way. While I'm no fan of unwanted pregnancies, chlamydia or sexual assault/harrasment/manipulation, I'm realistic enough to note that the vast majority of sex doesn't involve these. It can be done safely, and is, the vast majority of the time, by people of all walks of life, and genuinely contributes to their happiness and satisfaction with life. To stall efforts to make it even safer, in the name of safety itself, is simply...fucked.
Burlington's Catholic school board has formally decided against providing space for public health nurses to give out shots to immunize against the HPV to Grade 8 Students. HPV has no known cure or treatment, and has been called a "necessary step" in the formation of cervical cancer by the American Cancer Society, as well as cancers of the mouth, throat, penis and anus. Cervical cancer often leads to infertility, and frequently leads to death. Over 400 Canadians will die of Cervical Cancer this year.
Why would any warm-blooded school administrator wish to increase the risk of such fates to their students? It's simple - because HPV is spread through sex, and the Catholic faith declares sex outside of marriage to be a sin. The Catholic board has a strict policy of abstainence when it comes to sex education, and it feels that allowing such vaccinations to take place would undermine that.
This kind of logic, frankly, boils my blood.
It wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager in this region, and I knew many Catholic school kids from Burlington. They made bunny rabbits seem abstainant. I know many people to this day who were former students of Catholic schools, all the way to the old-time English sort run by nuns. None of these people are Catholic today, and most are not even Christian. The more young people I talk to about religion, the more people I find turning away from Christianity, specifically for these types of issues. Sexual "morality" (especially of the anti-sex, anti-gay sorts) may be a hot-button issue for religious fundamentalists, but nearly everyone beyond that fringe can see a host of more crucial issues - poverty, war, famine, environmental destruction and many others, which the Church constantly ignores so that it can continue it's crusades against condoms in schools or gay marriages.
Abstainence education doesn't work. Abstainence, as a birth control strategy, fails far more often than condoms. Teenagers are some of the horniest creatures on this planet, and unfortunately sexual arousal tends to diminish rational thinking and risk assessment. This is why the US, with it's "just say no" policies on sex education has 6-9 times the teen pregnancy rates of Western Europe, with their frank and open notions on birth control. This is why liberal northern US states have lower teen pregnancy rates and STI rates than the south, and it is why, despite remarkably similar rates of sexual activity, Catholic high schools in Ontario show higher rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections than public schools. The notion that all sex before marriage should be condemned is based in the religious ideology, clearly not reflected by the views of most Canadians. As my old anthropology prof liked to remind us, only 5% of human societies forbid sex out of wedlock, anyways. If that's their belief, as a religion, then they can keep to it themselves, if they wish, but to limit options in schools which are paid for by our tax dollars, then they're making choices for us. This issue should raise many issues about how we fund Catholic schools, and not Anglican, Muslim or Buddhist schools.
Most grade 8 students are not in a position to choose to go to a public school. Most 13 and 14 year olds are only beginning to grasp the great questions of religion, a personal choice which many people take whole lifetimes to decide upon. While many 13 year old girls may not be "interested" in sex at the moment, to expect them all to reach the age of marriage without gaining said interest is purely unrealistic. Kids make mistakes, and teenagers aren't going to stop having sex because grown-ups told them to. And most importantly, even if this good catholic girl does abstain until marriage, and even if her husband has only ever had one other sexual partner (in a committed, years-long relationship), the risk is still there, and it would be a real shame for her to become infertile, or die as a result. If her husband cheats on her, the risk is there. And if she is raped, the risk is there. To remove the option of a vaccination that may save her life because of anti-sex ideology is cold-hearted and vindictive.
Sex is a fact of life. If it weren't one of the most compelling drives we have, there wouldn't be billions of us on the planet right now, and billions more on the way. While I'm no fan of unwanted pregnancies, chlamydia or sexual assault/harrasment/manipulation, I'm realistic enough to note that the vast majority of sex doesn't involve these. It can be done safely, and is, the vast majority of the time, by people of all walks of life, and genuinely contributes to their happiness and satisfaction with life. To stall efforts to make it even safer, in the name of safety itself, is simply...fucked.
posted by Undustrial at 1:03 PM
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