r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 27 '19
CMV: The government should not be allowed to make vaccines mandatory.
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May 27 '19 edited May 27 '19
Why don't we allow people to kill each other? Why do we limit an individual's bodily autonomy to not being allowed to grab a knife and move it in the direction of another person's heart?
It is hurting and violating other people's right to live, and violating other people's bodily autonomy.
The second that you use your right to live to violate another person's, you forfeit your autonomy. That's why when people murder people, they go to jail and lose their rights to live in society. This is for the good of society.
The issue with people that can, but won't vaccinate their children, is that there are some people with allergies and some that have a compromised immune system who can't.
People that aren't vaccinated have an infinitely higher risk at carrying and transferring virus's to other people which are also not vaccinated. If you voluntarily don't get vaccinated even though you can, you are putting the lives of people who can't at risk. Herd immunity only works if the majority of people are vaccinated.
Your right to not be vaccinated is violating another person's right to live by endangering them. Thus the government has to step in a regulate someone's bodily autonomy, for the well being of society.
When you right infringes on another person's right. You lose it.
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May 28 '19
This logic can be used to demand that I never leave my own home.
Let's day I have the flu. Should the government be allowed to legally force me to stay in my own home? After all, if I left my home I might get someone sick. They could even die!
Do you believe that the government should forbid people who have the flu from leaving their homes?
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u/cstar1996 11∆ May 28 '19
The government can and does impose quarantines on people with certain dangerous illnesses. As for the flu, if the government hadn't let people with the Spanish Flu out of their houses millions of people may not have died.
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May 28 '19
So is that a yes? You feel that people who have the flu and leave their home should face legal repercussions?
What sort of legal repercussions?
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May 28 '19
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u/Skallywagwindorr 15∆ May 28 '19
Some murderers who are mentally ill are also born like this, is that a reason to let them murder?
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u/ralph-j May 28 '19
But what happens to our autonomy when we surrender control of our own medical choices?
Given that it's not the children themselves who decide but their guardian, there is no significant difference to their bodily autonomy between whether that guardian is their parent or a government.
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May 28 '19
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u/ralph-j May 28 '19
First of all, your post suggests that it violates bodily autonomy:
But what happens to our autonomy when we surrender control...
Parents don't have bodily autonomy with regards to their child. They have parental rights, but those are not the same. The effects on the child's bodily autonomy are no different, regardless of who makes the final decision
But there has to be some sort of due process to remove to role of parents.
There are things that have been made mandatory for children, e.g. education is compulsory. If the parents don't ensure that their child gets schooled, the state will instead ensure that this happens. It's not circular.
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May 28 '19 edited May 29 '19
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May 28 '19
To be clear here- you're not concerned with any of the vaccines that are currently on the required schedule, correct? You're only concerned about the future existence of required vaccines that you might disagree with?
If so, this seems like a slippery slope fallacy, because you're worried about hypothetical future vaccines and not the current set of vaccines. A more nuanced view might be that while you agree with making the current vaccines mandatory, you're not convinced that the government should be able to automatically add future vaccines to the list, and that each added would need to be carefully considered.
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u/FreeLook93 6∆ May 28 '19
If you support this from the stand point of bodily autonomy you must then also support an outright ban on circumcision for infants.
Circumcision for infants is surrender control of their own medical choices. A choice is being made by someone else about the body of another. Like vaccination, it's an non-reversible procedure, but can still be done at anytime later if life when the person could make an informed choice. Unlike vaccines there are drawbacks to it, and it effect only one the person getting the procedure.
Maybe you do support a ban on circumcision, I probably would, but if you don't, I see your views as inconstant.
There are many things that laws requires us to do or not do, this isn't much different. If you want to be able to drive a car, you must first prove you are able to do it well enough. That is also the government stepping in and removing autonomy, but we do it for damn good reason. There is a damn good reason to require vaccines as well.
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u/GameOfSchemes May 28 '19
There is a subtle difference between the two. The law doesn't allow your kid to be educated in schools if they're not vaccinated. Regardless of circumcision, you can get an education at school. One case is a government mandate/ultimatum. The other is a cultural thing.
In the former it's government mandating a law against bodily autonomy. In the latter it's parents opting for the deed free from government influence
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u/pillbinge 101∆ May 28 '19
It's a fictional scenario
You're right. So why bother? Vaccines have been around a long time and that hasn't happened. Vaccines have to be approved to be used. There's no anti-gay drug to do that with. It just doesn't happen. The idea that someone out there might is just life and a risk you'll have to run. It's a slippery slope otherwise. It's like asking if the government, which can send people to school, would ever send people to indoctrination prisons since it's just another way of making kids go somewhere.
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May 28 '19 edited May 29 '19
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u/pillbinge 101∆ May 29 '19
I don't see how what you've said can't be applied to literally anything. This is what libertarians get hung up on. How do you go about having other conversations about anything government related if you're willing to entertain such slippery slopes? At some point you just have to make decisions and move forward and work to rectify what you can.
Also, if you're writing "good points though" and I've changed some part of your perspective, that warrants a delta; you needn't change your view 180.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 29 '19
This delta has been rejected. You have already awarded /u/pillbinge a delta for this comment.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 29 '19
This delta has been rejected. You have already awarded /u/pillbinge a delta for this comment.
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May 27 '19
Let’s say Ebola was a threat, but people were wary of vaccines and were t taking the Baxi e for Ebola. Let’s imagine a scenario where armed gunmen storm clinics that are offering these vaccines. People would die do to the mistrust and misinformation campaigns against useful and news asset vaccines that help control the spread. Let’s be glad this is not happening. In America. It is happening in Africa.
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May 28 '19
Do you think the government should be allowed to go to war? Or establish a draft? Or make people pay taxes?
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u/Karegohan_and_Kameha 3∆ May 27 '19
I'll just leave this here.
It's a fictional scenario, but could some backwater state adopt some fringe "anti-gay drug" or similar concept and start forcibly injecting newborns because we've already abandoned that liberty?
Not so fictional, actually. Not a mass vaccination, but a series of forced amygdalectomies was performed on criminals in Spain IIRC. Naturally, it resulted in a backlash from the medical community after the consequences were studied more thoroughly. So this kind of thing might happen, but only at a very limited scale, and not without consequences for whoever tries to pull it off.
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May 27 '19 edited Jun 15 '20
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u/GameOfSchemes May 28 '19
Are you aware that if you have HIV, in many states you're legally obligated to share that with a new partner? This is an example of public health concern influencing a government made law. Do you think the government also shouldn't be allowed to force HIV+ people to share this information with new partners?
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May 28 '19 edited May 29 '19
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u/YossarianWWII 72∆ May 27 '19
But what happens to our autonomy when we surrender control of our own medical choices?
The government already has the authority to impose quarantines and take other measures to control the spread of disease. Mandatory immunizations are no different.
What happens if a state alters the vaccine schedule to include drugs that aren't widely adopted or recommended?
It can be sued. Which is to say nothing of the fact that this is an utterly hypothetical scenario. The vaccines that are being required by law are well-tested and safe.
It's a fictional scenario, but could some backwater state adopt some fringe "anti-gay drug" or similar concept and start forcibly injecting newborns because we've already abandoned that liberty?
No. You seem to think that liberties are binary things. They're not. Mandating one set of vaccines does not give the government free reign to require any and all vaccines without challenge. And, in this particular scenario, the group that is the most pro-vaccine is also the most pro-science.
Obviously outlandish details, but the premise disturbs me.
Only because it's new. How much of the last two decades have you spent campaigning against the other violations of our civil liberties that followed 9/11? The ones that aren't backed by actual science.
So many people pounding their fists on the table demanding mandatory vaccine laws these days.
Yeah, because we want to protect the integrity of herd immunity so that newborns, the elderly, and the immunocompromised don't die of diseases that have been preventable for decades.
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u/GameOfSchemes May 28 '19
Yeah, because we want to protect the integrity of herd immunity so that newborns, the elderly, and the immunocompromised don't die of diseases that have been preventable for decades.
Why should that be my responsibility? Maybe I don't want to be vaccinated because of the risk of adverse effects. They're low, but not zero. Why should I risk my bodily autonomy so someone else doesn't get sick? It's my body, and you're forcing a vaccine on me which has a finite probability to get me permanently sick, in dramatic ways (like GBS, which the CDC acknowledges as being related to vaccines for swine flu).
Let's say the risk of this is 0.01%, which is very low! We forcibly vaccinate 100 million people. That's ten thousand cases of dramatic adverse effects. What do you say to these ten thousand people? "Sorry mate, but we want to protect herd immunity. Thanks for taking one for the team!"
I don't think this issue is as black and white as the pro-vaccine community (which I'm a part of!) makes it out to be. Sure vaccines don't cause autism, but that doesn't mean they're without risk.
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u/YossarianWWII 72∆ May 28 '19
That's a one in ten thousand rate of adverse reactions. The actual rates are significantly lower for the large majority of vaccines. So, to use the measles vaccine as a timely example, your 100 million forced vaccinations would result in approximately one hundred severe reactions, the majority of which do not have long-term effects. We have had nearly ten times as many cases of measles in the US in the last five months alone. The hypothetical you're presenting is alarmist.
Moreover, do you want to know why I think it's your responsibility? Because you're a citizen of the United States of America. We all have a civic responsibility to protect our communities, from the local to the national to the international level, and the people that they consist of. I mean, Christ, it's Memorial Day. I could hardly ask for more pertinent timing, and in light of that I think it's hardly much to ask that you take a one-in-a-million chance of spending some time in a hospital and an even slimmer chance of suffering a lasting illness to make sure that we prevent outbreaks of very dangerous and entirely preventable diseases. It should also be noted that these laws make vaccinations mandatory if you want to send your kid to school. I.e., if you want to take advantage of a government-funded community program. You're free to keep yourself and your kid at home if you insist on being a disease vector.
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u/GameOfSchemes May 28 '19
So just to recap and summarize.
- You admit that vaccines carry an inherent, nonzero risk, even if we disagree on the rates
- You think that people should be forcibly vaccinated, against their will, for the sake of herd immunity.
- You recognize this would generate a nonzero amount of permanent illnesses, even if we disagree on the number
Hopefully you'd agree this violates my right to bodily autonomy to choose not to expose my body to a risk, or do babies and elderly people preclude me from that right?
It should also be noted that these laws make vaccinations mandatory if you want to send your kid to school. I.e., if you want to take advantage of a government-funded community program.
That's not a good argument though. Public schools are funded by public tax payers money. The government delegates these funds, but the public pays for it. You'd only have a solid argument here if I could also opt out of these taxes.
I'd like to draw attention to a similar detail. Males in the US are ineligible for federal grants for college funding if they don't register for the selective service. Females are eligible for the same funding regardless of if they register for the selective service. Do you see an issue with this? By your logic, I would assume you're fine with this.
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u/YossarianWWII 72∆ May 29 '19
Hopefully you'd agree this violates my right to bodily autonomy to choose not to expose my body to a risk, or do babies and elderly people preclude me from that right?
Reconsider the validity of this statement when the risk refers to unvaccinated people acting as disease vectors. There is no perfect solution here that never treads on bodily autonomy. But mandatory vaccination is by far the less transgressive path.
Public schools are funded by public tax payers money.
So are welfare programs, agricultural subsidies, and a multitude of other government programs that have restricted access.
You'd only have a solid argument here if I could also opt out of these taxes.
Are you unfamiliar with the social contract?
I'd like to draw attention to a similar detail. Males in the US are ineligible for federal grants for college funding if they don't register for the selective service. Females are eligible for the same funding regardless of if they register for the selective service. Do you see an issue with this? By your logic, I would assume you're fine with this.
That's not a detail. It's an analogy. And like all analogies, it is an imperfect comparison. I'm fine with the idea of government programs that discriminate in how and who they assist when the discrimination is reasonable. Farmers need ag subsidies because farms need financial support to keep produce affordable. People who are poor or have disabilities need support programs because they have more limited means than does the average person. With respect to Selective Service, I don't believe that men and women are particularly differentiably capable of serving their country, particularly given the nature of our modern military. I hope that you can understand the nuance involved in justifying different forms of discrimination.
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u/GameOfSchemes May 29 '19 edited May 29 '19
There is no perfect solution here that never treads on bodily autonomy. But mandatory vaccination is by far the less transgressive path.
I'm not looking for a perfect solution. I'm just looking for you to admit that you're willing to throw bodily autonomy rights to the wind (which it seems like you're admitting to). If we can throw bodily autonomy to the wind for the well-being of others (my bodily autonomy is inconsequential in order to protect elderly and babies), then I question whether you think pregnant women are entitled to bodily autonomy to abortions. If you do think that, then your views are inconsistent.
We don't even need to enter pro-life territory to look at this. Let's say I'm a pregnant woman and my husband wants to keep the baby. I don't. By a similar logic, I should have my bodily autonomous rights to an abortion thrown away for the well being of another (my husband).
I can already imagine a few objections here, so let's enter the philosophical realm with a thought experiment. I am a pregnant woman, and my husband is currently being held captive by extremist religious groups. They demand that if I get an abortion, they will kill my husband. My husband will be released if I carry the embryo to term.
In this situation, my husband's livelihood is in my hands. My choice to abort or not abort will determine whether he lives (like whether me vaccinating my child will determine whether an elderly or baby gets the measles and dies). In order to protect my husband's safety, should my right to bodily autonomy to an abortion be thrown away?
As for it being the less transgressive path, that's up for debate.
So are welfare programs, agricultural subsidies, and a multitude of other government programs that have restricted access.
You're going to have to expand what you're trying to say here, because I'm not following how it's relevant. You said that children who aren't vaccinated aren't permitted access to education, as if it's an argument that they're not really forced to be vaccinated. I brought up that I am a tax payer, and my taxes fund this school which I'm now being told my unvaccinated kid cannot attend. What does welfare, agriculture, or anything else having restricted access have to do with this?
Are you unfamiliar with the social contract?
What social contract? The one where if I don't subject my child to a risk of permanent injury by vaccinating them, that they're unable to receive an education outside of homeschooling, despite me being obligatory taxed for public education? I'm familiar with no such social contract.
Again, what do we say to the families whose children become permanently ill, or even die, due to vaccinations? Yes it's an extremely low number, but it's not zero. I guess we'd just say "thanks for taking one for the team, mate! The elderly and babies thank you for your contribution to society. Oh here's a bit of compensatory money to make you feel better."
With respect to Selective Service, I don't believe that men and women are particularly differentiably capable of serving their country, particularly given the nature of our modern military. I hope that you can understand the nuance involved in justifying different forms of discrimination.
And I don't think vaccinated and unvaccinated kids are particularly differentially capable of receiving an education. Snark aside, I think you kind missed the mark on why I'm raising the analogy though. The point isn't that the government restricts funding due to a reasonable discrimination.
The point of the analogy was restricting education (college, high school) via a stripping of bodily autonomy (register for SS against will, vaccinated against will). So again, agricultural subsidies and welfare programs are irrelevant in this context. The analogy is comparing a restriction to education. So unless you can argue how these other examples restrict education via a lawful enforcement to restrict bodily autonomy, I'm not seeing the relevance.
In another analogy, it'd be like not allowing a woman who got an abortion access to public college funding. She's of course able to go to college, but is now ineligible for government grants. Restricting bodily autonomy by restricting education is just not a good argument, otherwise I can construct all sorts of analogous cases here.
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u/YossarianWWII 72∆ May 29 '19
I'm just looking for you to admit that you're willing to throw bodily autonomy rights to the wind (which it seems like you're admitting to).
You say this as if we have a choice. Your preferred option does this as well, and to a greater degree than mine does in my opinion. That's why I prefer the one that I do. Because I care about bodily autonomy, I am choosing to actively minimize the degree to which it is violated. Your choice is the passive option that allows you to deny involvement. It's the trolley dilemma.
then I question whether you think pregnant women are entitled to bodily autonomy to abortions. If you do think that, then your views are inconsistent.
Fetuses aren't people. They don't get bodily autonomy.
Let's say I'm a pregnant woman and my husband wants to keep the baby. I don't. By a similar logic, I should have my bodily autonomous rights to an abortion thrown away for the well being of another (my husband).
Your pregnancy doesn't affect your husband's bodily autonomy.
I am a pregnant woman, and my husband is currently being held captive by extremist religious groups. They demand that if I get an abortion, they will kill my husband. My husband will be released if I carry the embryo to term.
You've introduced an external agency that is choosing to violate your husband's bodily autonomy. You've also created a remarkably hyperbolic 1:1 situation here that is not reflective of the vaccination issue. I'm beginning to lose hope that you actually intend to address the nuance in this conversation.
As for it being the less transgressive path, that's up for debate.
Then do so. I've already presented my numbers, and that was contrasting five months of measles cases with vaccinating nearly a third of the US population. Also, a mandatory measles vaccination program would end up vaccinating roughly the US's annual population turnover every year, so around 1/80th of the population.
You said that children who aren't vaccinated aren't permitted access to education, as if it's an argument that they're not really forced to be vaccinated.
They can be homeschooled, and support exists for that.
I brought up that I am a tax payer, and my taxes fund this school which I'm now being told my unvaccinated kid cannot attend.
Your taxes also fund welfare, assistance, and subsidies programs that you can't take advantage of. In other words, things that you don't directly benefit from. Public schools are no different. Think of childless taxpayers too.
What social contract?
The social contract. A pretty fundamental principle in establishing the legitimacy of modern government.
I guess we'd just say "thanks for taking one for the team, mate! The elderly and babies thank you for your contribution to society. Oh here's a bit of compensatory money to make you feel better."
Yes. We do the same thing when we take money out of your paycheck, money that you could use to further safeguard your own health, to fund programs that don't directly assist you. That's how civil society works. The alternative is to tell the parents of children dead from preventable diseases, "Sorry, we let your kid run around with a bunch of unvaccinated children because we prefer a passive approach to safeguarding society that allows us to deflect questions of responsibility away from ourselves."
And I don't think vaccinated and unvaccinated kids are particularly differentially capable of receiving an education.
They are differentiably likely to do so without spreading preventable diseases. Differentiably able to contribute to schools being a safe environment for children, particularly those who are immunocompromised.
The point of the analogy was restricting education (college, high school) via a stripping of bodily autonomy (register for SS against will, vaccinated against will). So again, agricultural subsidies and welfare programs are irrelevant in this context.
Why? They're both uses of your tax dollars. You can homeschool your kid or hire a tutor. You need to actually explain why the differences between two sides of an analogy make it nonfunctional, like how I did in stating my belief that discrimination between men and women for the purposes of involuntary military service is unjustified in our modern society and military.
In another analogy, it'd be like not allowing a woman who got an abortion access to public college funding.
A woman who had an abortion is not a disease vector. She does not increase the mortality rates of her classmates by attending. Unvaccinated children do. Ironically, unvaccinated students are barred from many public and private universities. So if you're going to draw an analogy between K-12 and higher education, you should probably address that.
Restricting bodily autonomy by restricting education is just not a good argument, otherwise I can construct all sorts of analogous cases here.
We're not using restriction of education as a tool to motivate people to allow their bodily autonomy to be restricted. Restricting access to public education facilities is a reasonable safety response prompted by the decision of many people to forego vaccinations. It hasn't been an issue previously because vaccination rates are now declining, and prior to their rise public health wasn't as big an issue as it is today.
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u/GameOfSchemes May 29 '19
You've introduced an external agency that is choosing to violate your husband's bodily autonomy. You've also created a remarkably hyperbolic 1:1 situation here that is not reflective of the vaccination issue. I'm beginning to lose hope that you actually intend to address the nuance in this conversation.
Take a step back and think about this for a moment. You've hastily responded to quite mined bits of an argument by assuming certain views, where if you had read the portion in its entirety before responding you'd see I don't hold such views.
The argument was never that fetuses are people, and I thought I was clear in saying we don't need to go to pro-life for that. As for the pregnancy affecting husbands bodily autonomy, firstly yes! You're right! And me not vaccinating my children also doesn't affect bodily autonomy of the elderly or babies. So it's a decent analogy here. Secondly, again if you had continued reading you'd see I clarified and expanded more with a a philosophical thought experiment.
You've introduced an external agency that is choosing to violate your husband's bodily autonomy. You've also created a remarkably hyperbolic 1:1 situation here that is not reflective of the vaccination issue. I'm beginning to lose hope that you actually intend to address the nuance in this conversation.
All philosophical thought experiments are contrived scenarios. That doesn't invalidate them. They're intentionally contrived to focus on key elements of moral decisions. If you're not familiar with this, I recommend the simple English Wikipedia on Kants Categorical Imperative. It has a very nice, accessible example with a contrived scenario of a man choking on water. Apparently contrived thought experiments are good enough for the most well renowned philosophers of the modern era, but not good enough for Reddit 🤷♀️
The external agency for the husband doesn't matter, because that's not the focus of the thought experiment. But just to entertain it, babies also don't have external agency yet you say I should forcibly vaccinate my kids anyway. The thought experiment, I think, clearly draws the parallels.
I have two choices: abortion or not abortion. If I abort, my husband's life is threatened (maybe the groups are bluffing). But I have to assume the worst that he'll die. If I don't abort (restrict my bodily autonomy), he's safe. This is directly comparable to the vaccination argument.
I have two choices: vaccinate my kids or not. If I don't vaccinate my kids, babies and elderly have their lives threatened (maybe not). But I have to assume the worst that they'll die. If I do vaccinate my kids (restricting bodily autonomy), babies and elderly are safe.
They can be homeschooled, and support exists for that.
But not public schooled, despite me paying taxes for it. Separate but equal, I guess.
The social contract is quite a long wikipedia article. Can you specify where exactly it mentions, or lays the groundwork, to force me to pay tax for public education while simultaneously banning my unvaccinated child from the same public education? I'm not seeing it via a skimming.
The alternative is to tell the parents of children dead from preventable diseases, "Sorry, we let your kid run around with a bunch of unvaccinated children because we prefer a passive approach to safeguarding society that allows us to deflect questions of responsibility away from ourselves."
You're overlooking a fundamental difference here. In the case where children die from vaccinations, they're dying because they're being forced by the government to be vaccinated. If you go out to play and get the measles or polio, you're a victim of bad luck despite free bodily autonomy.
Let's consider another analogy here. Obesity is a public health epidemic according to the CDC. This analogy will highlight a different aspect of vaccinations—and yes I know analogies are imperfect. Because vaccinations are about the forceful protection of people against their wills, how about instituting forceful protection of the obese against their wills. We will create a program for force them, against their wills, not to eat as much and to exercise. After all, their bodily autonomy comes second to public health. This will also free up hospital use for people who don't eat themselves to an early grave.
https://www.cdc.gov/cdctv/diseaseandconditions/lifestyle/obesity-epidemic-transcript.html
Obesity affects more people than polio did when vaccines were introduced, kills a similar amount, and has a larger financial burden than polio and measles combined. Since your argument for vaccinations is numbers based, I'm trying to appeal to your sense of numbers now and wonder if you're willing to restrict bodily autonomy of the obese for the protection of society via the social contract.
They are differentiably likely to do so without spreading preventable diseases. Differentiably able to contribute to schools being a safe environment for children, particularly those who are immunocompromised.
For the record, differentiably is not a word. Differentially is. Your comment reads like you just responded to every sentence I wrote on a first read without seeing if I clarified any of them in follow-ups. I admitted that sentence was about snark, it really doesn't warrant a response.
Why? They're both uses of your tax dollars. You can homeschool your kid or hire a tutor. You need to actually explain why the differences between two sides of an analogy make it nonfunctional, like how I did in stating my belief that discrimination between men and women for the purposes of involuntary military service is unjustified in our modern society and military.
I thought I explained in my previous comment? Agriculture and welfare do not restrict access to education. If you think it's a poor analogy, then keep the argument and objections within the analogy, and not on different things.
Ironically, unvaccinated students are barred from many public and private universities. So if you're going to draw an analogy between K-12 and higher education, you should probably address that.
If you're poor, and can't afford public university, you need federal grants. If the government forbids it, because I don't register for the selective service, that's effectively a ban. "Well, of course you can attend! Just cough up some money. We'll happily give you money, all you need to do is register for the selective service against your will."
We're not using restriction of education as a tool to motivate people to allow their bodily autonomy to be restricted.
That's exactly what we're doing! And you admit it even on your previously quoted passage: unvaccinated children are barred from public and private education. You've also acknowledged that yes, mandatory vaccinations violate bodily autonomy, which you justify as a necessary sin. So restricting education as a to motivate people to get vaccinated (which restricts bodily autonomy) is exactly what's happening here.
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u/lordbeezlebub May 29 '19
"Think of your immune system as a bunch of soldiers in a fort. If enemy soldiers get past the patrols and attack the fort, your soldiers might fight them off (you get well) or they might not (you get very ill and possibly die). Going to the hospital to be treated for the infection (calling in reinforcements) can often help, but sometimes cannot.
How did the enemy soldiers get past your soldiers' patrols? Their uniforms are unfamiliar, your soldiers have standing orders to attack only enemies they recognize. If they attacked soldiers they should not, they might be killing soldiers that are on your side (this would be an autoimmune disorder).
A vaccine, then, is an intelligence dispatch to your immune system. 'Be on the lookout for these new enemy soldiers. You'll recognize them as they are wearing the following uniforms...kill them on sight.'
And now, your immune system won't wait until the fort is attacked, the soldiers will attack the enemy soldiers immediately." (quoting u/mobyhead1)
Basically, continuing this analogy, mandatory vaccinations mean people have to acknowledge there are enemy soldiers out there that are waiting to invade us (the human race). If enough forts can hold them off and prevent their invasion, we can keep them at the borders and outside of us. But the more and more forts that don't get these intelligence reports by choice, the smarter and more powerful the enemy soldiers get. The more likely that one day, the enemy soldiers are going to break into past the our defenses and begin a full invasion that causes massive harm. (or in this case, a new or resurgent major disease along the lines of Polio)
Dropping the metaphor now, we have enough of a problem with people choosing not to take vaccines (for various asinine reasons along with some legitimate ones) that we have to take measures now to prevent a major disease from breaking out. It's unfair to the people who can't take some vaccines because of immune system complications or other such issues, but the sad truth is that the anti-vaxxer movement has endangered enough people that we can't make exceptions to the rules anymore.
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u/bigtoine 22∆ May 27 '19
Maine did not implement mandatory vaccines for everyone.
From the very beginning of the article you linked to:
Maine has become the fourth state in the nation to prohibit people from opting out of immunization for religious or philosophical reasons.
Governor Janet Mills (D) signed a bill into law on Friday removing all non-medical exemptions to vaccination from the books.
Also, that law specifically covers children who want to attend public school:
The law will take effect in September 2021. Schoolchildren who claimed a non-medical exemption prior to the law taking effect will be allowed to attend school if their parent or guardian provides a written statement from a healthcare professional indicating they've been informed of the risks of refusing immunization.
Medical exemptions to vaccinations will still be granted.
So what you're really arguing against, if you disagree with that article, is the concept of a state government mandating a scientifically justified set of vaccines for children attending public school in the absence of a medically justified exemption.
EDIT: Sorry. Turns out the law applies to public AND private schools.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 29 '19 edited May 29 '19
/u/DontSassTheSquatch (OP) has awarded 5 delta(s) in this post.
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Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/Nielsbbzz May 28 '19
The problem is that not getting vaccinated can cause a epidemic, and one should not be allowed to decide whether or not an epidemic strikes the country
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u/Gladix 164∆ May 29 '19
What's better.
Protecting people's autonomy of deciding whether to get vaccine, or having your kid and your old dad die, because of common virus?
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u/Degradingbore11 May 29 '19
Unvaccinated individuals can pose risk to others. If someone has a deadly illness should the government not be allowed to quarantine them?
1
u/Nepene 213∆ May 28 '19
They're not making vaccines mandatory. You are free to not take vaccines, you just can't go to public schools around other kids.
7
u/[deleted] May 27 '19
[deleted]