Concerned Women for America
Encyclopedia
Concerned Women for America (CWFA) is a conservative Christian public policy group active in the United States
best known for its stance against abortion
. The group was founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye
, wife of Christian Coalition of America co-founder Timothy LaHaye, as a response to activities by the National Organization for Women
and a 1978 Barbara Walters
interview with noted feminist Betty Friedan
. Concerned Women for America says of itself:
CWA does not publish membership numbers, but external estimates range between 250,000 and 750,000, depending upon how membership is defined. As of 2006, the circulation of its free bimonthly newsletter, Family Voice, was estimated to be approximately 200,000 copies. The organization's current president and CEO is Wendy Wright
.
The CWA Statement of Faith is as follows:
Concerned Women for America's major areas of public policy activity in recent years have consisted of opposition to LGBT political causes
(especially recognition of same-sex unions), promoting laws restricting abortion, supporting bans on embryonic stem-cell research, and working against pornography
.
"counterfeit marriage[s]" that the group believes will be used "to take control and to have the force of law to legitimise their disordered, unnatural behaviors."
Opposition to gay marriage has also led the group to oppose hate crime
legislation that includes sexual orientation, referring to such laws as "weapons against... people who might oppose the homosexual agenda
, such as Christians preaching on the street, even Christians preaching from the pulpit
around the world." Matt Barber, CWA’s Director of Cultural and Social Policy, suggests that false reports of hate crimes have been used to push legislation supporting the same-sex agenda, and in 2007, he asked for a federal investigation into these allegedly false reports.
CWA opposes the right of gay men and women to have consensual sex in their own homes. In April 2003, responding to the pending case of Lawrence v. Texas
, then-Senator Rick Santorum stated, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." After the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee demanded that Santorum resign as chairman of the Republican Senate Caucus, Concerned Women for America released a statement criticizing the "gay thought police" and saying Santorum was "exactly right."
CWA asserts that homosexuality is against God's wishes for sexuality, describing homosexual behavior as "disordered," "unnatural," and "immoral." CWA has been a consistent opponent of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. Recent initiatives sponsored by CWA have placed emphasis on opposing programs geared towards LGBT
teenagers on the basis that such programs "promote homosexuality," as well as opposing anti-bullying programs which explicitly mention sexual minority youth, stating that "the radical homosexual lobby has done a masterful job of infiltrating our government schools to gain control of the minds of America’s youth. Their propaganda tactics are time-tested. With liberal school officials in tow, they brazenly circumvent and abuse parental authority to use good-hearted but misguided children as pawns to further their deceptive agenda." CWA supports their position by claiming that homosexuals do not suffer from a history of discrimination, that reports of bias crimes against LGBT people are typically fabricated, and that such protections would violate the religious liberties of Christians.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
has described Concerned Women for America as one of a "dozen major groups [that] help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade".
in all cases, unless it is to save the life of the mother. It opposes emergency contraception
, including after cases of rape
, asserting that the ECP
is actually an abortifacient. CWA asserts that most forms of birth control—and all forms of hormonal birth control—are actually abortifacients, triggering chemical abortions.
, in a letter to Gov.
Mike Rounds
(himself a known pro-life Roman Catholic), cited a study finding that one in four teenagers in South Dakota have a sexually transmitted disease
to promote her organization's stance on the issue. According to Schauer, the CWA's stance on sex education intends to teach children the "dangers of sex outside of marriage and give them the tools to avoid promiscuity
."
In opposition to abstinence-only programs, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., studied children age 9–11, following up on them five years later to find that the abstinence programs were ineffective. In a study of 2,057 teens, the report found that the likelihood of children educated with comprehensive sex education to remain abstinent for the next five years was about the same as that of those who received abstinence-only education. In response to this report, Valerie Mosher of CWA argued that "the findings about abstinence programs are based on a flawed design" because the children involved in the study were only educated in these programs from ages 9 to 11, which she believes was too young for the importance of abstinence to have taken effect.
Critics state that the strong abstinence-only stances taken up by CWA based on Christian principles have not been more effective than those of secular democracies of Western Europe in terms of preventing unwise teenage sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases among teenage segments of the population.
In an article published on December 29, 2008, the Washington Post cited a report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
that stated that teens who make vows of abstinence are just as likely to have pre-marital intercourse as those who do not, and it also claims that the children who do make these pledges are less likely to use birth control or condoms.
In a special report broadcast on Fox News Channel
on 31 December 2007, CWA President Wendy Wright made the following claim regarding proponents of comprehensive sexual education:
Supreme Court case of 1962 outlawed government-directed prayer, morality has declined in public schools and society in general. CWA also supports the teaching of intelligent design
in public schools, arguing that courses only teaching evolution
fail to give students a well-rounded view of the universe's creation.
, obscenity, and media indecency, specifically on satellite radio, and satellite and cable television. CWA supports "a la carte" cable and satellite television purchasing plans, allowing individuals to purchase access to individual channels, as opposed to programming packages.
Concerned Women for America also opposes embryonic stem-cell research, describing it as "deadly," and the destruction of "embryonic human beings."
On August 22, 2006 CWA announced that they "strongly believe" hotel porn is prosecutable, and have issued an "urgent appeal" to the United States Department of Justice
to "immediately investigate" two leading in-room adult movie distributors.
In a joint effort with thirteen other groups, it released an ad which stated "DOJ and FBI
should immediately investigate whether 'adult' videos being sold in hotels by OnCommand and LodgeNet violate long-established Federal and State laws regarding distribution of obscene material. ... Adult hardcore pornography can tragically lead to sex crimes against women and children. ... Yet sex videos are available in millions of U.S. hotel rooms which we strongly believe are prosecutable."
In 2011, CWA launched an ad campaign critical of government spending and debt.
which can lead to cervical cancer
, since Gardasil
, the vaccine, was released. Instead, CWA is suggesting that because there are questions about the long term effect of the vaccine, parents, not the government should be making this decision. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
has withdrawn their call for mandating the HPV vaccine, as has Merck, who recently ceased lobbying efforts in state legislatures. CWA does not object to the vaccine itself, but is objecting to any mandate. CWA does advocate abstinence before marriage as the best way to fight contracting viruses like HPV. However, it is still possible that a woman could be abstinent until marriage and still contract this disease through the past sexual contact of her husband. It is for this reason, CWA does not object to the vaccine, but instead advocates it being made available.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
best known for its stance against abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
. The group was founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye
Beverly LaHaye
Beverly LaHaye is an American Christian conservative activist and author.-Biography:Beverly LaHaye is best known for The Act of Marriage, a Christian sex self-help bestseller she co-authored in 1976 with her husband Tim LaHaye, and for founding Concerned Women for America in 1979 in San Diego,...
, wife of Christian Coalition of America co-founder Timothy LaHaye, as a response to activities by the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
and a 1978 Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
interview with noted feminist Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
. Concerned Women for America says of itself:
We are the nation's largest public policy women's organization with a rich 28-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy. We help people focus on six core issues, which we have determined need Biblical principles most and where we can have the greatest impact.
CWA does not publish membership numbers, but external estimates range between 250,000 and 750,000, depending upon how membership is defined. As of 2006, the circulation of its free bimonthly newsletter, Family Voice, was estimated to be approximately 200,000 copies. The organization's current president and CEO is Wendy Wright
Wendy Wright (activist)
Wendy Wright is the current president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian political action group active in the United States. She joined the organization in 1999 and served as its executive vice president before being named president on January 30, 2006...
.
Mission statement
Its mission statement is: "The mission of CWA is to protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens - first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society - thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation."The CWA Statement of Faith is as follows:
- We believe the Bible to be the verbally inspired, inerrant Word of God and the final authority on faith and practice.
- We believe Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, rose bodily from the dead on the third day and ascended into Heaven from where He will come again to receive all believers unto Himself.
- We believe all men are fallen creations of Adam's race and in need of salvation by grace through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
- We believe it is our duty to serve God to the best of our ability and to pray for a moral and spiritual revival that will return this nation to the traditional values upon which it was founded.
Advocacy
Concerned Women for America's public policy advocacy efforts are based on its six "core issues," which they see as Biblically-based and supported by scripture. These are:- FamilyFamilyIn human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
- "CWA believes that marriage consists of one man and one woman. We seek to protect and support the Biblical design of marriage and the gift of children." CWA donated $409,000 in support of Proposition 8California Proposition 8 (2008)Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections...
, which banned same-sex marriage in the state of California. CWA also opposed the 1988 Act for Better Child Care (H.R. 3660), which would have provided government-sponsored child care for families in which both parents are working. - Sanctity of Human Life - "CWA supports the protection of all innocent human life from conception until natural death. This includes the consequences resulting from abortion."
- EducationEducationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
- "CWA supports reform of public education by returning authority to parents." In 1983, CWA helped the plaintiff in the case Mozert v. Hawkins County School Board, a district court case in which said plaintiff believed it unconstitutional for said public school district to require specific reading material for students. - PornographyPornographyPornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
- "CWA endeavors to fight all pornography and obscenity." - Religious Liberty - "CWA supports the God-given rights of individuals in the United States and other nations to pray, worship and express their beliefs without fear of discrimination or persecution."
- National Sovereignty - "CWA believes that neither the United Nations nor any other international organization should have authority over the United States in any area. We also believe the United States has the right and duty to protect and secure our national borders."
Concerned Women for America's major areas of public policy activity in recent years have consisted of opposition to LGBT political causes
LGBT rights opposition
LGBT rights opposition refers to active opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights. Organizations influential in LGBT rights opposition frequently challenge judicial rulings, and legislative initiatives, and dispute findings that sexual orientation is an immutable...
(especially recognition of same-sex unions), promoting laws restricting abortion, supporting bans on embryonic stem-cell research, and working against pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
.
Position on LGBT rights
Concerned Women for America opposes legal recognition of LGBT rights as civil rights. CWA states that many state and federal laws define marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman, and it calls all forms of civil unions or domestic partnership between same-sex individualsSame-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
"counterfeit marriage[s]" that the group believes will be used "to take control and to have the force of law to legitimise their disordered, unnatural behaviors."
Opposition to gay marriage has also led the group to oppose hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
legislation that includes sexual orientation, referring to such laws as "weapons against... people who might oppose the homosexual agenda
Homosexual agenda
Homosexual agenda is a pejorative term used by some conservatives in the United States to describe the advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships...
, such as Christians preaching on the street, even Christians preaching from the pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
around the world." Matt Barber, CWA’s Director of Cultural and Social Policy, suggests that false reports of hate crimes have been used to push legislation supporting the same-sex agenda, and in 2007, he asked for a federal investigation into these allegedly false reports.
CWA opposes the right of gay men and women to have consensual sex in their own homes. In April 2003, responding to the pending case of Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by proxy, invalidated sodomy laws in the thirteen other states where they remained in existence, thereby making same-sex sexual activity legal in...
, then-Senator Rick Santorum stated, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." After the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee demanded that Santorum resign as chairman of the Republican Senate Caucus, Concerned Women for America released a statement criticizing the "gay thought police" and saying Santorum was "exactly right."
CWA asserts that homosexuality is against God's wishes for sexuality, describing homosexual behavior as "disordered," "unnatural," and "immoral." CWA has been a consistent opponent of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
Employment Non-Discrimination Act
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers with at least 15 employees.ENDA has been introduced in every...
, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. Recent initiatives sponsored by CWA have placed emphasis on opposing programs geared towards LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
teenagers on the basis that such programs "promote homosexuality," as well as opposing anti-bullying programs which explicitly mention sexual minority youth, stating that "the radical homosexual lobby has done a masterful job of infiltrating our government schools to gain control of the minds of America’s youth. Their propaganda tactics are time-tested. With liberal school officials in tow, they brazenly circumvent and abuse parental authority to use good-hearted but misguided children as pawns to further their deceptive agenda." CWA supports their position by claiming that homosexuals do not suffer from a history of discrimination, that reports of bias crimes against LGBT people are typically fabricated, and that such protections would violate the religious liberties of Christians.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
has described Concerned Women for America as one of a "dozen major groups [that] help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade".
Position on abortion and contraception
The group opposes abortionAbortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
in all cases, unless it is to save the life of the mother. It opposes emergency contraception
Emergency contraception
Emergency contraception , or emergency postcoital contraception, refers to birth control measures that, if taken after sexual intercourse, may prevent pregnancy.Forms of EC include:...
, including after cases of rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, asserting that the ECP
Emergency contraception
Emergency contraception , or emergency postcoital contraception, refers to birth control measures that, if taken after sexual intercourse, may prevent pregnancy.Forms of EC include:...
is actually an abortifacient. CWA asserts that most forms of birth control—and all forms of hormonal birth control—are actually abortifacients, triggering chemical abortions.
Abstinence-only sex education
Concerned Women for America supports abstinence-only sex education, which it refers to as "abstinence-until-marriage." Linda Schauer, the State Director of CWA for South DakotaSouth Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
, in a letter to Gov.
Governor of South Dakota
The Governor of South Dakota is the head of the executive branch of the government of South Dakota. They are elected to a four year term on even years when there is no Presidential election. The current governor is Dennis Daugaard, a Republican elected in 2010....
Mike Rounds
Mike Rounds
Marion Michael "Mike" Rounds is an American politician. Rounds served as the 31st Governor of South Dakota. Rounds was first inaugurated on January 7, 2003, having been elected on November 5, 2002, and was re-elected on November 7, 2006...
(himself a known pro-life Roman Catholic), cited a study finding that one in four teenagers in South Dakota have a sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
to promote her organization's stance on the issue. According to Schauer, the CWA's stance on sex education intends to teach children the "dangers of sex outside of marriage and give them the tools to avoid promiscuity
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
."
In opposition to abstinence-only programs, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., studied children age 9–11, following up on them five years later to find that the abstinence programs were ineffective. In a study of 2,057 teens, the report found that the likelihood of children educated with comprehensive sex education to remain abstinent for the next five years was about the same as that of those who received abstinence-only education. In response to this report, Valerie Mosher of CWA argued that "the findings about abstinence programs are based on a flawed design" because the children involved in the study were only educated in these programs from ages 9 to 11, which she believes was too young for the importance of abstinence to have taken effect.
Critics state that the strong abstinence-only stances taken up by CWA based on Christian principles have not been more effective than those of secular democracies of Western Europe in terms of preventing unwise teenage sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases among teenage segments of the population.
In an article published on December 29, 2008, the Washington Post cited a report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
that stated that teens who make vows of abstinence are just as likely to have pre-marital intercourse as those who do not, and it also claims that the children who do make these pledges are less likely to use birth control or condoms.
In a special report broadcast on Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
on 31 December 2007, CWA President Wendy Wright made the following claim regarding proponents of comprehensive sexual education:
"In fact they want to encourage that because they benefit when kids end up having sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies and then they lead them into having abortions. So you have to look at the financial motives behind those who are promoting comprehensive sex ed."
Promotion of Christianity
Concerned Women for America supports prayer in public schools, stating that "religious expression has been denied to students" since the implementation of twentieth-century legislation. Laurel MacLeod, writing for the CWA in an article titled "School Prayer And Religious Liberty: A Constitutional Perspective", suggests that the banning of prayer in public schools can be seen as a breach of the First Amendment. In a 1988 book titled America: To Pray or Not To Pray?, CWA claims that since the Engel v. VitaleEngel v. Vitale
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that determined that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools....
Supreme Court case of 1962 outlawed government-directed prayer, morality has declined in public schools and society in general. CWA also supports the teaching of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
in public schools, arguing that courses only teaching evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
fail to give students a well-rounded view of the universe's creation.
Positions on media
Concerned Women for America opposes pornographyPornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, obscenity, and media indecency, specifically on satellite radio, and satellite and cable television. CWA supports "a la carte" cable and satellite television purchasing plans, allowing individuals to purchase access to individual channels, as opposed to programming packages.
Other advocacy
Concerned Women for America oppose human trafficking in all forms, particularly of women for sexual purposes.Concerned Women for America also opposes embryonic stem-cell research, describing it as "deadly," and the destruction of "embryonic human beings."
On August 22, 2006 CWA announced that they "strongly believe" hotel porn is prosecutable, and have issued an "urgent appeal" to the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
to "immediately investigate" two leading in-room adult movie distributors.
In a joint effort with thirteen other groups, it released an ad which stated "DOJ and FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
should immediately investigate whether 'adult' videos being sold in hotels by OnCommand and LodgeNet violate long-established Federal and State laws regarding distribution of obscene material. ... Adult hardcore pornography can tragically lead to sex crimes against women and children. ... Yet sex videos are available in millions of U.S. hotel rooms which we strongly believe are prosecutable."
In 2011, CWA launched an ad campaign critical of government spending and debt.
Opposition to mandating cervical cancer vaccination
CWA is heavily active in opposing mandating vaccination against HPV, the virusVirus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
which can lead to cervical cancer
Cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is malignant neoplasm of the cervix uteri or cervical area. One of the most common symptoms is abnormal vaginal bleeding, but in some cases there may be no obvious symptoms until the cancer is in its advanced stages...
, since Gardasil
Gardasil
Gardasil , also known as Gardisil or Silgard, is a vaccine for use in the prevention of certain types of human papillomavirus , specifically HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. HPV types 16 and 18 cause an estimated 70% of cervical cancers, and are responsible for most HPV-induced anal, vulvar, vaginal,...
, the vaccine, was released. Instead, CWA is suggesting that because there are questions about the long term effect of the vaccine, parents, not the government should be making this decision. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
has withdrawn their call for mandating the HPV vaccine, as has Merck, who recently ceased lobbying efforts in state legislatures. CWA does not object to the vaccine itself, but is objecting to any mandate. CWA does advocate abstinence before marriage as the best way to fight contracting viruses like HPV. However, it is still possible that a woman could be abstinent until marriage and still contract this disease through the past sexual contact of her husband. It is for this reason, CWA does not object to the vaccine, but instead advocates it being made available.
Principals
- Beverly LaHayeBeverly LaHayeBeverly LaHaye is an American Christian conservative activist and author.-Biography:Beverly LaHaye is best known for The Act of Marriage, a Christian sex self-help bestseller she co-authored in 1976 with her husband Tim LaHaye, and for founding Concerned Women for America in 1979 in San Diego,...
, Founder and Chairman, wife and co-author with Tim LaHayeTim LaHayeTimothy F. LaHaye is an American evangelical Christian minister, author, and speaker. He is best known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction, which he co-wrote with Jerry B. Jenkins. He has written over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction.-Early life:LaHaye was born in Detroit,...
, a best-selling author - Wendy Wright, President, a frequent guest on national and international media discussing moral, social and political issues
- Penny Nance, CEO