Perry, a Republican, bypassed his Republican-controlled legislature to issue an executive order requiring girls entering the sixth grade to receive the vaccine beginning next fall. In bypassing lawmakers, Perry sidestepped opposition from conservatives and parents' rights groups that objected to the order.

It is doubtful that requiring girls to take the vaccine would have been controversial at all if it were not protecting them from a sexually transmitted virus. HPV, contracted during sex, is responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

Many citizens worry that administering the vaccine to 11- and 12-year-old girls could be seen as condoning teenage sex. Others simply don't want the government telling them how to raise their children.

But Perry, a conservative Christian himself who opposes abortion and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, sees this vaccine as no different from the one that protects children against polio.

"The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer," Perry said. He also has directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls aged 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance doesn't cover the cost of the vaccine. And he ordered that Medicaid offer the vaccine to women ages 19 to 21.

The order gives parents who don't want their children vaccinated the option of not participating in the program. That should help assuage the critics who think government shouldn't force them to have their children immunized.

But, as Perry noted, this vaccine functions like others that school children are required to receive, such as those for polio, whooping cough, measles and diphtheria. The HPV vaccine essentially prevents a disease that could lead to life-threatening cancer.

The debate basically boils down to two questions: Does requiring girls to receive HPV vaccine condone or encourage premarital sex? And, is it not humane to spare young women and their families from the possible misery of a life-threatening disease?

Surveys indicate that many, if not most, young people will engage in sex before they reach adulthood. Such statistics may be hard to accept, but they put this issue its proper context -- one of public health.

We are bothered by the fact that Merck & Co., the developer of the vaccine, also has mounted a costly nationwide lobbying campaign for requiring girls to be vaccinated. Merck, which is marketing the vaccine under the name Gardasil, stands to make a fortune from the vaccine, which, at the least, blurs the company's motives.

Nonetheless, the drug has been shown to be effective with no serious side effects. If we can protect millions of American girls from the ravages of cervical cancer, we should.

IN SUMMARY

We should not deny millions of girls the advantage of being protected from cervical cancer.

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