jeffp - You're partly right. Detection is not prevention.

Pap smears can and do alert you to pre-cancerous cells. In the case of pap smears, detection can alert you and surgery can prevent cancer from developing. In most cases, surgery is a cone biopsy performed as a day surgery. It can actually be done in a doctors office without hospitalization. This surgery does not cause infertility.

It seems to me that people are rushing into this without considering the long term effects and the precedent that might be set. Why the rush? You'd think this was a pandemic or something. In fact, the cases of cervical cancer are declining, thanks to the pap smear.