OK, I’ll give you that. Your use of “bold” on the first part misled me as to what you thought was difficult.
But I consider myself hyper-sensitive when I sign my name to things (I actually may my state’s “use tax”, one of only about 300 people who do — so you can see I take my oath seriously).
I would have no trouble claiming a conscientious objection to Gardasil, if I had such an objection. That’s what it means, I oppose it because I don’t THINK it is right to give it to my kids.
It wouldn’t be a religious objection, but that wasn’t the only reason I could claim. In fact, the form so far as I can tell doesn’t force you to explain your objection, you simply site the 2nd clause as the reason for your objection.
I probably would have instead gone to my doctor, to get sound medical advice, and then used the doctor for my objection (because I don’t object to the idea of vaccinating against STDs, I simply would object to the medical rewards vs the risk/cost of doing so, and that would be a medical opinion which I would reach in consultation with a doctor).
Oddly, when our state had mandatory Gardasil vaccine, it was for 6th graders, and since my kids were older, I never had to do anything about it. There was no attempt to “catch up” on the vaccinations. I still opposed it, and wrote opinion columns opposing it and calling for the repeal of the law in Virginia.
Thanks for correcting the record. I made a mistake by leaving the bold in. As I was composing my reply that used it my initial emphasis changed. I wanted to play up the medical excuse aspect since I had some familiarity with the intense marketing to the medical profession that went on with Gardasil. As I wrote I realized that was anecdotal, and I tried to make a more generally based, less anecdotal, point.