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So choosing not to have your child injected with something that actually carries a small risk of causing death is criminal negligence, and reason to take control away from the parent? You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
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It is when the alternative is a
substantially increased risk of death not only for your own child but others as well. It is when it is flies in the face of all medical science. It is when you don't even know what the risks are either way because you refuse to learn them. It is when you fail so completely in fulfilling the most important responsibility as a parent, which is to do all you can to keep them safe, and your social responsibility as well. It is a myth that a parent must know what is best for their child. A parent is not ipso-facto an expert in parenting, as they should well know from all the interesting challenges and anguish they face on a daily basis. They may be the closest thing to an expert regarding the individual child, but that expertise does not extend to their immune system.
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I have no issue with putting rules in place that keep children who haven't been vaccinated from attending schools, or receiving other social benefits. If that's a law that the majority agrees on then I can see that as fair. But the moment you start telling people what they have to do with their body is the moment that I balk. This is very surprising from someone who has made so many recent blogs discussing a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. Surprising and hypocritical.
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This is nonsense. This example isn't even about one's own body at all, but one's children's bodies. Here's where someone's beliefs, preferences and ignorance affect not their own health, but the health of other people. It's the same view I have of refusing your kid's life-saving blood transfusions because of your religious beliefs. Or neglecting to apply your kids with sunscreen. Or feeding them all fast food and junk. These are decisions that you are free to make for yourselves. Made for your kids? There is a word for that.
Abuse.
It is very simple. These decisions are not in the best interest of the child. They allow or directly cause harm. You can choose that for yourself, of course. A sub might enjoy being tied up and beaten and consent to that, but a child does not. You probably find this comparison to be ridiculous. I don't care. It is the same thing in my eyes. A kid with whooping cough is not any better off than a kid who has been beaten. Both end up with broken bones.
But with vaccination, you are not even only deciding the health of your own kid.
There are genuine reasons why an individual should not be vaccinated. They are rare and usually predictable, and a good parent knows if their kid falls into this category. They might be allergic to some component of the injection or have another health issue. Leukaemia, for example.
Such people are protected not by their own immunity but by that of those around them. Herd immunity. Which is a very fragile protection because only a small percentage of the population can be not vaccinated before chains of infection can form. We each encounter tens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people every day, so a reduction in immunisation means that you can meet many people who have not been immunised. Suddenly those diseases can spread easily again, and they are today. Suppose a parent didn't vaccinate their kid and she became the last link in the chain that infected the leukaemia lad in her class with measles? Bad enough for an otherwise healthy kid, extraordinarily dangerous to an already weakened and immunocompromised one. That decision not to vaccinate could cost the life of someone else's kid via mechanisms that are very well understood. Does this still fall under the remit making decisions for your own body? Rhetorical. The correct answer is no.
Diseases that have become quite antiquated in the developed world are making a horrifying comeback, and people are already dying. Kids are dying. The choice not to vaccinate is not a neutral one that we cannot judge. It is the wrong choice, and it has hideous consequences. In the state of Washington, whooping cough is officially an epidemic. It is entirely preventable and this outrageous event is entirely the fault of fucking stupid parents who did not vaccinate and the dangerous morons who spread the misinformation that discourages vaccination. Why anyone would heed the likes of Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy ahead of doctors and scientists, I do not know. That may be a valuable social study.
But it is not a topic that we know little enough about to sit back and say "decide what's best for your family." It is already known what is best, and any parent serious about protecting their children should also know. All the resources are available, and it is the most important thing a parent will ever do.