...she won't be able to register for school in the fall of '08 unless she is vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease.

I can't even begin to tell you how disgusted I am that Gov. Perry signed this legislation, abandoning his conservative base and throwing parents' rights in the garbage. No, my daughters won't be directly affected since they won't be registering for school, but this issue is much bigger than your educational choices. And now it appears that one of the factors is Perry's close links to Merck, the maker of the vaccine. Maybe it speaks to my naivete that this still shocks me.

News reports here are full of medical personnel, educators, and social workers crooning about how wonderful it is that Texas is "out front" on this, and that soon all 50 states will follow our admirable lead. (Never mind that the flu vaccine, which is NOT mandatory for school children or anyone else saves many more lives than the HPV vaccine--there are clearly social and economic motives at work here which do not apply to the very dangerous influenza epidemics.)

Instead of my detailing the problems with this fiasco, I direct you to this discussion of the purely scientific and secular-based reasons why it's such a bad idea, and this statement from a Christian organization expressing its dismay that our state will now circumvent parents' prerogatives in health decisions for their children.

Oh, and don't be fooled by the attempts to mollify concerned parents with the late-added "opt-out" provision: those of us who have had experience trying to opt out of public school programs for sex education and other objectionable parts of the curricula know that the accompanying stalling, red tape, and ostracization hardly make these options acceptable.