In one of the sicker incarnations of the Christian Right's myopia, they're gearing up to oppose a new vaccine that could protect women from HPV, the virus that causes most instances of cervical cancer. HPV, of course, is often spread through sex, so the God Squad is worried that giving children a vaccination will, years later, be interpreted as a divine "alrighty-then" to lead a life packed with penises. This appears to be what Christ's legacy has come to: the prioritization of abstinence over life.
That's what should be taken away from these comments. Bush likes to conceal his stance on abortion through the inegnious "culture of life" formulation. But these people don't really want a culture of life. Their overriding objective is not protecting women from AIDS and HPV and cervical cancer and potentially deadly childbirth (as in partial-birth abortions) and other potential killers, it's stopping them for having premarital sex. And if a few -- hell, if a lot! -- have to die to make that future manifest, then so be it. So next time you hear someone spout off about the "culture of life", don't be fooled -- this is a culture of puritanism and subjugation, nothing more, nothing less. A culture of life, you can tell them, doesn't kill.
