An Open Letter to Rick Baxter

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Rick I trust that all is well with Erica and the kids. I hope to presume upon our family’s long time friendship and offer some comments on my concerns for the state of Michigan. I have gotten over my initial shock that Michigan elected a Canadian to govern, but any state that allows Geoffrey Fieger to run as a serious candidate for governor deserves what it gets. When I saw Granholm’s comment about you being a traitor to the state for criticizing her for running off 20,000 non-automotive jobs in the WSJ, I laughed.

My concern today is no laughing matter. I recently read that the legislature is considering requiring all 6^th grade girls to have a vaccine for HPV a virus that is a sexually transmitted disease. This is a brief excerpt from the article I read:

Michigan may require cervical vaccine

September 13, 2006
LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan girls entering the sixth grade next year would have to be vaccinated against cervical cancer under legislation backed Tuesday by a bipartisan group of female lawmakers.

The legislation is the first of its kind in the United States, said Republican state Sen. Beverly Hammerstrom.

The vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in girls and women and has been hailed as a breakthrough in cancer prevention.

A government panel said that ideally the vaccine should be given before girls become sexually active.

Some conservatives have expressed concern that schools would make the vaccine a requirement for enrollment. They have argued that requiring the vaccine would infringe on parents' rights and send a message that underage sex is OK.

AP

Have you people gone completely off your rocker? This proposed legislation is morally repugnant on so many grounds that I don’t know where to begin. It’s bad enough that the state feels free to intrude on the civil liberties of its citizens by requiring vaccinations to attend school. At least some of those vaccines are design to prevent communicable dieses. In this case you’re trying to force little girls, who have no business experimenting with sex, get a shot designed to protect them from an STD!

I recognized years ago that Michigan was a cesspool of socialist meddling, Marxist economics, and moral decay in which no decent person should live. Consequently I fled the state in 1994. I realize that this was long before your political career began and it makes it impossible for me to complain to you as one of your constituents, or even as a resident of the state.

As one father to another Rick, this is bad public policy. Its bad for civil liberties, its bad for public morals, it’s bad for parental authority. I urge you to work to put a stop to it.