Catholic school bans "cervical cancer jab"

The governors of the Roman Catholic school in Lancashire which has banned vaccination to protect against cervical cancer on its premises, claim this is on health grounds. The vaccination – which provides immunity to the virus linked to the big majority of cervical cancers - can have mild side effects, such as headache and nausea.
Their objections are disingenuous – a convenient excuse for people who don’t want the vaccination on so-called moral grounds. This is also extremely irresponsible.
If the governors are so worried about side effects and their ability to deal with them then they should be getting worried all the time. After all children and young people get mildly ill all the time.
The governors are worried, but the parents are not. Reportedly the parents of the students want the girls to be given the jab.
The governors are worried but trained, professional health care workers who are responsible for administering the jab are not.
The governors are worried about the kind of normal side effects which can be felt after many vaccinations, but not about the fact that over 1000 women die each year from cervical cancer.
No the governors at St Monica’s RC High in Prestwich are worried about something else. At least one of their number had criticised the injections for “encouraging sexual promiscuity”. They are worried about what it “looks like” about how “moral” it is to be seen to protecting girls against a sexually transmitted disease. As if by giving the jab they are condoning young women having sex, and as if the idea of young (unmarried) women having sex is something dirty and immoral. As if “life long marriage” and a “single sexual partner” is a. the number one choice for everyone in the modern world (it is not) and b. any protection against sexually transmitted illness – it is definitely not!
But this is the irrational, sexist, and in this case, potentially very damaging thinking which is produced by religious clap trap.
The school doesn’t have to participate in the scheme, both the state and their church have told them they can opt out (and even their church does not oppose the vaccine!). Just as individual parents can opt out.
But no school should be able to opt out of this new and life-saving vaccination programme. No school should not have to be persuaded to do the right thing. As if their "conscience" was something we should care about when life-saving treatment is available. It is socially backward from every single point of view. Administration through schools is a very effective way to get maximum participation – among young people whose families are unaware or simply too busy to take up the vaccination elsewhere for instance.
Finally the faith school system of education which leads to this backwardness – and it is an entire system, the churches and their bigotry and encouragement of sexual repression, has a massively disproportionate amount of control over education – needs to be scrapped. For the sake of education and, it seems, to save lives!