Last week many Australian parents received consent forms to fill in re their daughters being given Gardasil, a vaccination against HPV, the virus causing cervix cancer.

About a quarter of girls in the age group, mainly 12-year olds, are not taking up the offer.

Cancer Council Australia is launching a program aimed to recruit more takers.

But some parents resent the government’s presumption that their daughter is incapable of abstaining from sex until marriage.

And government interference in what they consider a strictly family matter.

Others aren’t worried – just getting their daughters done because it seems the “safest” thing to do.

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There are some worries about the safety issues — reports of girls developing seizures after Gardasil. Some have even died.

It’s all a bit hard to assess.

Some people oppose every kind of vaccination — depriving their children even of Whooping Cough vaccine etc. That’s a view this blog does not support.

What makes Gardasil special is that HPV spreads ONLY by promiscuous sex.

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Even if could be proved, as the Cancer Council claims, that Gardasil-injected girls are not more prone to have sex . . . .

Even then its use would make thinking parents uneasy.

The point — a bit subtle perhaps — is that the widespread use of this vaccine reinforces a notion, even among those not having sex themselves, that unmarried sex is “normal”.

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Acting immorally, even thinking immorally, is more harmful that cervix cancer.

Are we more than just robots?

Is there more to life than just doing whatever we feel like, and getting away with it for as long as possible with the help of technology, good luck etc?

If there is, then our eternal future depends on whether we obey God’s laws. Including his laws about sex.

We are going to be dead a lot longer than we are going to be (physically) alive.