Feminist Peace Network

Yesterday I received a letter in response to my essay about the HPV vaccine. It is always a pleasure to get fan mail in between the assorted offers to do various things to my genetalia and the writer’s further analysis of the issue is excellent. With her kind permission, I am reprinting her letter here.

“I was so relieved to read Lucinda Marshall’s piece, “Making the HPV Vaccine Mandatory is Bad Medicine.” When I heard that the Republican Governor of Texas was overriding the state legislature, and risking the alienation of the Christian right-wing to mandate the HPV vaccine for all girls in that state, I knew something was fishy. And yet my Google Search on the issue made it sound like the women’s movement was going to vote Rick Perry and Merck pharmaceutical into the Susan B. Anthony Hall of Fame.

I have always believed that if you study the forces you can figure out which policies and politics truly benefit women (and I mean ALL women, not just privileged white women). Marshall does just that. She examines the HPV vaccine in the context of a profit-driven medical system and instead advocates radical health care policy - ie. free paps and annual exams for ALL women, regardless of race or income - that truly would reduce our risk
of cancer. Thank you Lucinda! I can sleep soundly tonight knowing that this feminist is in good company.”

–Kristyn Joy, Seattle

The essay itself caused a bit of a firestorm in feminist circles because no one wants the issue to be decided on the basis of “family values” yammering that the vaccine would cause promiscuity. But given the sorry history of drugs such as HRT, DES and Thalidomide, as well as numerous questions about the many vaccines that children are already mandated to get, it seems to me that the feminist response ought to be to take the time to make sure that this vaccine is really safe and effective in the long term  before we spend billions of dollars mandating a vaccine that prevents a cancer that has already largely been brought under control in this country.

Adenda:  Yesterday the Kentucky State Legislature passed two bills out of committee.  One was a bill mandating the HPV vaccine.  The other was a bill requiring women seeking abortions to receive counseling about abortion risks, the age of the fetus and what aid is available to her if she decides to carry the child to term (including child support).  One bill came from the left side of the aisle as it were, the other from the right.  Bu they both smack of controlling women’s lives.  I think it’s a fair bet that if these bills had been about boys, they would have died in committee.

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