Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Legislative Overkill

Another study on the HPV virus. Tribune headline "27% of women have HPV":
Women ages 20 to 24 had the highest overall HPV prevalence in the study, 44.8 percent. Prevalence increased each year from ages 14 to 24, then dropped off gradually, confirming that young, sexually active women face the greatest risk.
The vaccine, which some want to have mandated for schoolgirls as young as eleven, would only cover 4 strains of the virus which affect 3.4% of women.

If parents think their kids might have sex at the age of 11 and wish their children to have this vaccine, fine. At age 18, girls can make their own decisions. The schools should stay out of it.

It is presumably not a communicable disease on school premises.

We just had some legislative worthy propose a law to mandate hand washing, which has passed the Illinois House. This is silly micromanaging, though obviously well-intentioned---it's common sense. But this kind of intervention can be very invasive and damaging to privacy rights, as well as undermining parental authority and values, which a healthy society should be in favor of supporting.

What will they want to mandate next in the schools? PC psychological profiles?

Illinois legislators should stick to the basics---fix our failing schools, balance our bankrupt state budget.

Previous post: Invasion of Privacy

No comments: