The Mandatory HPV Vaccine in Texas

Originally published on this website on Feb. 6, 2007.

This past Friday, February 2, 2007, the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, issued an executive order requiring all girls, upon entering the sixth grade - or, at about age 11 - to be immunized against HPV, or the human papilloma virus. Governor Perry and I are both Republicans, but he is not the first member of my own political party with whom I have found myself in vehement disagreement.

While HPV does cause cervical cancer, HPV is transmitted through sexual contact. A better course of action for Texas to take, rather than mandating more immunizations for the children of their state, is to work for abstinence until marriage, and fidelity within marriage, with it being understood that marriage is for as long as both the man and his wife shall live, preparing couples for marriage, and discontinuing the easy divorce which shatters families, many times plunges the women and children of divorce into poverty, and harms children most of all, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Forcing these immunizations on girls, not yet even women, and even against their will, is sending them the message, "Yes, we do believe the very worst in you, that you are going to be promiscuous, we do believe that you will commit fornication - having sex without being married (for you who have never heard that word, maybe because it hasn't been used, even in church, for far too long), and we are going to forcibly immunize you so that at least, maybe, you won't get one certain disease among many that you may likely get if you engage in this behavior." This executive order goes against the Biblical commands to teach our children to walk in the ways of the Lord, to promote personal and corporate holiness in our people, to believe the best that you can possibly believe about people, and to love one's neighbor as oneself. After all, would you want an unwanted and unnecessary immunization forced on you?

And why was an executive order necessary. Well, it wasn't. The issue was already before the Texas legislature. Of course, the pharmaceutical company that makes the vaccine, Merck and Co., has made donations to various Texas lawmakers and to a group called Women in Government, an organization that has lobbied heavily in several states for mandatory HPV vaccinations. Well, Texas has just become the first to mandate these unnecessary vaccines, which are also intrusions into the private lives and personal freedoms of every little girl and every family with children in their state. And in my opinion, this push for these mandatory vaccines is not to protect the public health, as it is clearly better to push for abstinence until marriage and fidelity within marriage. This push is clearly for profit, and the Holy Word of God has already told us that when someone loves money, they will do anything to get it. I believe that includes "Pier Sixing" our children's health in order to get the money that pays for whatever manifold sins that they are already involved in, or want to be involved in, which take so much money to pay for.

But there is another factor involved in the push to speed things up. A rival company, GlaxoSmithKline, is close to releasing a similar drug, which would create competition for Merck. Merck simply wants to corner the market and make their money before the other guy can cut into their profits.

It is not money, but the love of money, that is a root of all kinds of evil, and the love of money in this sorry case in Texas is clearly a root of the evil order just handed down by that state's chief executive. This is just another example of why we, the people of this country, should prefer only Christians who act and vote like Christians to rule over us. I'm just glad that I don't have a daughter who hasn't yet made it past the sixth grade in Texas. If I did, I'd be looking for a job in some other state, where, hopefully, the best possible things are believed about my children and about the rest of my family, and not the worst.