But, you ask, what about women who abstain from sex before marriage but marry someone who has been sexually active and is a carrier of the virus?  Shouldn’t women be protected against the possibility that even if they follow God’s plan for sex they might still be infected?  The answer is absolutely but peace of mind should be gained by personal choice and not by government coercion.  According to the Center for Disease Control one out of every six men will suffer from prostate cancer at some point their life. Knowing this, I assure you if a vaccine against prostate cancer was developed it would not take a government decree to get me to roll up my sleeve.  I believe the same is true for women.  If Gardasil is made available and widely advertised I believe most parents will have their daughters vaccinated. The opt out option, which many believe solves the issue solves nothing.  Parents who choose to opt out will certainly have to answer a lot of questions and fill out a lot of forms. Pressure will be placed on parents who opt out with attempts made to make them feel like bad parents.   Why put that burden on someone who wants to avoid the vaccination instead of placing the responsibility with the person who wants it?   

One final point in this debate bears exploration.  Our society is moving quickly to try to remove the consequences of sin.  Instead of telling people they should simply stop engaging in immoral homosexual behavior we spend billions upon billions of dollars looking for a way to prevent AIDS.  If tomorrow every person on planet earth began following God’s plan for sexual actively (one man with one woman in the context of marriage for life) AIDS would disappear in a generation.  Instead of telling people that the use of alcohol and drugs will eventually destroy their lives we pass laws designed to regulate the consequences of their personal destruction.  HPV, along with a host of other sexually transmitted diseases, is rising to epidemic levels because we refuse to obey God.  Many have simply given up on morality as a preventative for the consequences of sin. Rather than waging a preemptive war against sin they would rather surrender and hope that mankind can find a way to remove the inevitable consequences of their desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Paul warned the church at Galatia, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7 NASV).   This has become known as the law of the harvest. It is a law of God which cannot be set aside by the laws of man.  Try as we might and noble as our motivations may be, sin has consequences that cannot be legislated out of existence.  It is possible this vaccine may make actually make young girls more susceptible to disease by leading them to believe being vaccinated means they can sleep around without fear, leading to more sexual encounters.

  As Christians, we should thank God for the knowledge that has led to the development of this vaccine and we should encourage its use.  But we should not give anyone the false hope that the consequences of sin can be overcome by anything less than our concern for personal holiness before a holy God.