Vaccination is not an onerous requirement and there is very good reason to believe it is beneficial to public health when widely administered. If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.
The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution.
I happen to believe in both liberty and public health.
In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal health care, school programs and public education campaigns we can hit those numbers, and we do so regularly.
There's no need for the gross violation of freedom some people fear, locking up parents or declaring them unfit, tying people to a chair and needling them. Doing this voluntarily puts more onus on the system to be smart and high functioning, invest in education and making people comfortable with the whole thing. It increases the pressure to reduce side effects, inconvenience, cost, fear and any other barrier to getting kids vaccinated. Generally, the whole thing works better.
The fundamentalist is not serving principles more faithfully than the centrist or pragmatist. She's often just being argumentative and trying to be right to the detriment of her principles.
Declaring all state involvement or authority to be (equally?) coercive and violent is silly, thinking in discreet categories when the world of human beings is fuzzy. Ignoring people's agency in the decision to vaccinate them or their children is an obvious violation is a basic morally deafness.
I see comments like these from smart people who think more deeply about such things than the average person. It's baffling. Almost makes me think that the whole enterprise of moral philosophy and political philosophy is counter-productive. People fall into traps of vainly searching for consistency and leave their moral sense behind, with common sense far behind.
TLDR: There is no reason to forgo obesity for vaccination or vaccination for freedom. People are motivated into these arguments by a desire to be right, not to help people be free or healthy.
As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly.
Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to home-school as a result, and 2.) keeps the children away from at least one of the locations (school) where they would interact with the largest population of other children.
> As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly.
Yeah, but no significant group is arguing for that; its a strawman.
> Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me.
Its not really much of a compromise -- its pretty much the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination proponents actually seek.
> the far extreme of what mandatory vaccination proponents actually seek
Vaccination proponents seek vaccine-preventable diseases to be largely prevented.
What do you mean by "mandatory vaccination proponents" if not the previous sentence you just dismissed as a straw man. Why are you trying so hard to be combative?
> What do you mean by "mandatory vaccination proponents"
People actually supporting the idea that government should mandate vaccination of children in some circumstances; the real people on the other side of the actual government policy debate from anti-vaxxers.
>People actually supporting the idea that government should mandate vaccination of children in some circumstances
Which, in fact, proposed laws--including the one passed in California--do not do. Yes. There are significant consequences to not vaccinating children (where there is no medical necessity) but it's not mandatory under any circumstances.
By and large, vaccination proponents recognize that the key is to hit certain vaccination percentages for herd immunity reasons. At least in some areas of the country (e.g. Marin County), allowing personal belief opt-outs without consequence do not achieve those percentages. The assumption is that requiring vaccination to attend public schools (absent medical reasons to opt-out) will reduce the number of children who do not get vaccinated.
> There's no need for the gross violation of freedom some people fear, locking up parents or declaring them unfit, tying people to a chair and needling them.
Not yet. If you don't think propaganda will align "drug-de-jour" with vaccination, you can go back half a century in the history books and find some surprising artwork. The point is that it's a bad precedent to coerce. The whole idea of the federal hammer (all-or-nothing) has betrayed the notions of community and local governance. I see the discussions on Nextdoor.com for my neighborhood, but it's ultimately left up to the Feds to mandate. Why aren't the states doing this? Because they are too afraid of the backlash, while the aloof congresspeople are obviously detached.
I would like to point out that, in practice, we have eradicated Polio, and Smallpox, both of which are terrifying diseases. Also, thanks to vaccination of the adult populace you never hear about babies dying from Pertussis. There are other diseases that are similarly rare now but that used to kill or deform people before vaccinations became a part of public health policy.
So there are some good reasons why I think you're right.
> If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.
Nope, they really don't.
The default should not be for the state to force someone to inject a substance into their body, and if they refuse or raise concern, that it is then on them to explain/justify why NOT. The state should justify why they're doing it, and make a good case to each individual so they make the right choice.
If you think the first amendment is an important right in the US, then the right to not have complex chemicals and or living organisms injected into your body should be an even higher right (since you're entrusting your very health on the state).
I fully support vaccines and we are CHOOSING to vaccinate our kid. I understand herd immunity, but your fear doesn't trump other people's individual rights.
I dislike both anti-vaxxers AND forced-vaxxers. One is scientifically ignorant and the other is morally bankrupt. Pick your poison I guess.
> The default should not be for the state to force someone to...
I agree.
> The state should justify why they're doing it
And they do: herd immunity, which is supported by convincing scientific evidence.
I didn't say liberty should be violated by default. We are no longer in a default position -- the argument has already been made and it is apparent that vaccination is justified as a social good. As a member of a society, sometimes social good takes priority over individual liberty. My argument is that if people still want to reject it, they need to explain why their liberty should come before others' health. (This is a rhetorical request I don't expect someone will be able to convince me of, though some may hold this view.)
You have no right to be protected from getting sick... One's personal liberties should generally extend just shy of infringing on an other's rights.. That should be the default.
That said I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but I'm medically unable to take most of them now as they would dramatically increase the chance of a deadly side effect. Once in my life was enough (and the 6-figure hospital bill after insurance cap), and a 5% chance of reoccurrence is bad enough without tempting fate to make that risk much higher.
> You have no right to be protected from getting sick...
Conversely, you have no right to infect other people (this is a unconsented harm inflicted on others, the most basic thing that is a violation of rights.) To the extent that doing so is neither intentional, reckless, nor negligent, you also shouldn't be held responsible to prevent doing so -- the question with mandatory vaccination largely boils down to whether failing to use particular vaccinations without a special medical reason is such a failing of a duty of care.
I'm fine with "you can't force me to get vaccinated" if it includes an acceptance of civil liability should you be part of an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease.
That's just petty. Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away. So, no, that is silly and helps nobody. If you're going to do that just go full hog and fine people, at least it doesn't feel like petty revenge.
Ultimately it is the fact that vaccines AREN'T required that forces the government to spend the time, resources, and effort promoting vaccines. Without that they can just arbitrarily start demanding we inject things and outright reject all requests for information/data/etc.
We are actually in a good-ish place. Most of the population is vaccinated, there's plenty of data on vaccinations available to the public, and many of the concerns have been debunked using good solid science which cannot easily be refuted.
Essentially the forced-vaccination people are arguing for worse science, they just haven't figured that out yet because they aren't looking far enough into the future. If they are forced, what is the justification for the science? Or are you just going to rely on other countries where it isn't mandated for the science (in particular follow up studies)?
As the parent of twins born the day before the third trimester, I assure you my motivations here are not petty.
> Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away.
Negligent homicide is punishable both civilly and criminally in most other situations. Why not in refusing to be vaccinated?
> We are actually in a good-ish place. Most of the population is vaccinated, there's plenty of data on vaccinations available to the public, and many of the concerns have been debunked using good solid science which cannot easily be refuted.
And we're finding that a certain percentage of the population is immune to scientific refutation. They're not going away, and they're causing some areas to drop below herd immunity levels. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/27/ca...
Negligent homicide is punishable both civilly and criminally in most other situations. Why not in refusing to be vaccinated?
Because it doesn't actually do anything with the problem of there possibly being an outbreak of some disease with the potential for widespread death.
Okay, great, you can hold the one person accountable for not vaccinating their kids liable for the deaths of ten people. Fantastic. Ten people still died.
Our justice system is very much a "If X, then Y" system - but what if your goal is not to deal with X the consequences of X, but to prevent it in the first place?
You could argue the deterrent effect, but if someone is irrational enough to ignore the conclusive logic that vaccines prevent you from getting sick, they're probably not going to be much more convinced by a (low) possibility that they might end up in front of a court and possible face prison. (And that's even if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the one person not getting vaccinated was the direct cause of the deaths beyond a reasonable doubt)
I think it's pretty fair actually - I don't want anyone (particularly children) to be forcibly vaccinated. But people should realize that choosing not to be vaccinated may cause harm to others and in that case it seems fair to be able to obtain compensation via the courts.
That mechanism wouldn't work very well though, because it's a situation with low risk, where it's hard to prove who caused the harm, and even when you do, the damages are so high, the injury won't be restored: For instance, if an influenza outbreak, that we assumed was caused by a set of 5 people in a school contracting the disease, and that killed 10 people, would not lead to multi million dollar payouts to the families of those that died, because chances are, there are no millions of dollars to give. So the compensation will not be any good.
Therefore, all you have left is deterrent, but really, do you think an anti vaxxer would care about going bankrupt, vs their perceived chance of their kid getting autism? I'd be very surprised if it provided any deterrent at all.
> The default should not be for the state to force someone to inject a substance into their body, and if they refuse or raise concern, that it is then on them to explain/justify why NOT.
Even most "mandatory" vaccination regimes don't generally do this.
They require people to vaccinate themselves (or, most often, their children) if they are medically able to be vaccinated as a precondition of use of certain public accommodations, as a means of protecting the health of other users of the same accommodation, including especially, but not exclusively, those medically unable to be vaccinated.
It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages.
Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.
That's the sort of tragedy-of-the-commons style fault that is prohibitively difficult to prove is due to a specific individual. Governments exist to solve such coordination problems.
If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?
Vaccines are not 100% effective. Some people are unable to take vaccinations. That's why we want to vaccinate as many people as possible - herd immunity protects the people who are unable to get vaccinated or people at that edge of efficacy.
And a child who is not vaccinated by their parent may want to get that vaccination when they're old enough to make that decision by themselves.
Why, categorically, should one be forcibly vaccinated in order to protect someone else? Sure, it's the civilized thing to do, but why is the justification to compel it?
(And yes, the "anti-vax" "movement" is disgusting - a fine example of the stupidity of crowds. Unfortunately, defending freedom often means defending scoundrels).
There's a similar argument around fire coverage. The common argument against a more libertarian approach to fire fighting is that if someone's house catches fire and is left to burn, then it will easily spread to neighbors, increasing their risk. And this the obvious physical reality, especially where things are dense.
But since those neighbors are the only concerned parties, then why (in principle) is that additional risk not theirs to bear and mitigate? It cannot cost any more than the neighbors splitting the cost of the fire protection on the unprotected building. Practically, the fire department would just pool that overhead across all customers.
Of course there is the issue of long term second-order effects - freeloading - since most likely if you didn't pay the fire department would still try to extinguish your house as quick as possible (possibly just busting it up a bit more in the process). But making coverage mandatory also ignores long term second-order effects when an organization does not have to be responsive to the people it serves (which is usually then handwaved away with the wisdom-of-crowds fallacy).
The root of the disagreement comes from different thinking about what society actually is. Is it a monolithic system we're all bound to and the only way to change it is top-down? Or is it the constructive result of the surplus that everyone is willing to bring to the table, implying that an individual should have the option to quit the game and take their ball - even if that individual then watches from the sideline or even returns to play but without their ball?
Both perspectives are needed, but every society is predisposed towards over-centralization - most people have a very hard time seeing anything besides their own perspective, so they falsely think their desires apply to everyone. Yet as demonstrated by the success of free markets, only decentralization can satisfy and incorporate minority viewpoints. When creative destruction is prevented from applying to structures within the society, then it will inevitably occur to the society as a whole.
> But making coverage mandatory also ignores long term second-order effects whereby organization becomes completely disconnected from the people it serves
I don't see how you can argue that it ignores this in the case where people advocating for mandatory fire protection coverage advocate that the agency through which the fire protection is provided be democratically accountable to the people in the covered area, which pretty much excludes anyone advocating public coverage in the modern developed world; addressing that effect is a central purpose of democratic accountability.
Democratic accountability to the served population deals directly with disconnection from the served population without appeal to either "wisdom of the crowds" (it doesn't rely on the "crowds" being correct, it relies only on them being the population served) or the "perfection" of centralized control (which seems to be a completely different issue, that might be worthy of discussing, but isn't the one you said was ignored.)
I edited right before you responded, swapping out "completely disconnected" in favor of "does not have to be responsive". The former was indeed too absolute to ever be true.
So yes democracy does create a connection between centralized government and the body politic. It's just a bit of a tenuous connection that addresses only gross problems that are understood (the inherent limitation of any centralized planning) by more than 51% of people.
> If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated?
Vaccines are not 100% effective, and, in any case, even if they aren't, they may have a real medical reason for not vaccinating: a large part of the reason for efforts to achieve universal vaccination among those who don't have a special medical condition making vaccination unavoidable is herd immunity; the effect that reducing the rates of infection reduces the risks from vaccine failure in those who do vaccinate, and reduces the risk of exposure in those who legitimately cannot vaccinate.
Why are you debating vaccines when you don't even know the basic facts about them such as they don't end up protecting everyone, which is why herd immunity is so important?
