Many states are considering making it mandatory that parents have their girls vaccinated for HPV which is a virus that can cause cervical cancer. The governor of Texas, Republican Rick Perry has just signed this in to law. The outrage by many against this government intrusion into parental rights is completely justified. Laws such as these continue the dangerous nanny state trend. While I agree that parents should know about this vaccine, and it’s great that the vaccine is available, this is not a disease like measles that can be spread through the air by children in school. This is a case of the government saying to parents “We know what’s best for your children, and demand that you do what we tell you to do.”

Churches and family rights groups should keep up the fight against their state governments to not implement plans such as these, or to overturn them. Many parents are rightly concerned that it hasn’t been fully proved that the HPV vaccine is not harmful. The virus is mainly transmitted through sexual contact, so parents also don’t want to send a message to their daughters that pre-marital sexual activity is ok.

We should not focus on political parties. The Democrats have a history of expanded government and are pushing for forcing companies to provide contraceptive coverage whether or not that goes against the beliefs of the company owners. Ultimately they want hospitals to be forced to provide abortions, even if they are Catholic hospitals.

However, the Republican Party is the pro-business party, and is inclined to be swayed by policies that will help companies that ultimately might donate to political campaigns. The pharmaceutical company Merck is one of the main companies pushing this type of legislation.

Governor Perry has been getting a lot of negative press about going along with this legislation. Hopefully other state governments are taking notice.