Today we live in a society where at risk behaviors such as drunk driving are not condoned, behaviors such as this puts others at risk for injury and even death. With no exemptions on laws that prohibit drunk driving, there shouldn’t be exemptions on laws that allow parents the option of not getting their young children vaccinated. Vaccinations are a vital part of a child’s health and well being. Young children who are not vaccinated can pose an even greater threat to children under the age of 1 who are too young to get vaccinated, and individuals who have weakened immune systems due to age and other illnesses. It is not altruistic for parents to refuse vaccinations due to their own personal beliefs. Being a mother of 2 children, I am a firm believer in the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, however I do believe that personal as well as public health transcends over a right such as this. Eradication of communicable diseases has been successful in the US as a part of immunization policies. Aside from less severe childhood illnesses such as chicken pox, Conjunctivitis (also known as Pink Eye), and an ear infection, opponent parents should be well educated and informed of the risks and fatalities that result from the absence of …show more content…
As parents, the natural instinct to protect your children will overbear any medical recommendation. However, the choice of not vaccinating your children is selfish to the child as well as others in society. With the proper precautions and research, scheduled vaccinations will have a higher success rate than failure rate. Every parent is entitled to their parental rights in the US, but every person in society is also entitled to their health as well. “The best way to reduce vaccine-preventable diseases is to have highly immune population” (Centers for Disease
Requiring vaccinations is a highly debatable topic in the United States today. An article by Ronald Bayer, “The continuing tensions between individual rights and public health,” is one of the most reliable sources in the case study. The author has a PhD from the University of Chicago and focuses his research on issues of social justice and ethical matters. Bayer has also previously been a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethical issues related to public health. This makes him very knowledgeable about the topic and a highly credible source.
The increase in the number of diseases in America is becoming problematic due to religious reasoning to not receive vaccinations. This is creating a problem in society because there are some that are not being treated for these diseases and since they aren 't being treated for it, they put others at a large risk of getting the diseases. The parents that choose to not have their child/children vaccination are making it unfair to their child and other children. If someone isn 't vaccinated then they are putting all in society at risk since they aren 't vaccinated.
In conclusion, the idea of mandatory vaccination seems to be a better solution so the choice is not given to parents who do not know enough about the matter and the harm they could cause. This program if implemented can keep away all of the diseases that people have worked hard to eliminate. Mill's hypothetical agreement of limiting this liberty is well supported by reason and can be convincing to those who oppose mandatory vaccination, as long as this Liberty of a choice to vaccinate can cause harm to others, it should be taken
Today, young children receive vaccines to protect them against 14 different diseases. Because some vaccines require more than one dose, children can receive as many as 26 inoculations by 2 years of age and up to five shots at one time. For this reason, some parents now ask their doctors to space out, separate or withhold vaccines. If the parent(s) decided to not vaccinate their child, the child may not have the necessary antibodies to fight off infection. That is why to protect the child, the vaccine needs to be not enforced on the child, but strongly suggested by the doctor.
The article “Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child” reasons that “Some diseases that once injured or killed thousands of children, have been eliminated completely and others are close to extinction– primarily due to safe and effective vaccines”. Because of vaccines the world today as we know it is slowly becoming safer as more and more diseases are being eradicated. The U.S. has helped in their own way to get rid of diseases. The article “Should Any Vaccines Be Required for Children?” states that “In 1855 Massachusetts passed the first U.S. state law mandating vaccinations for schoolchildren [5], followed by New York (1862), Connecticut (1872), Indiana (1881), and Arkansas (1882).” So as the years went on the U.S. has continually integrated vaccinations for the youth, in this case, it is needed in order to attend
Recently the topic of mandatory vaccinations has been publicized due to an outbreak of measles stemming from Disneyland. Parents currently have some rights to deny having their children receiving childhood vaccinations, but are these parents really helping them or just posing a risk to the child and a nation. Parents find many different arguments to exempt their children from vaccinations, such as childhood vaccines causing autism, or that vaccines are not safe, but how true are these arguments? Many parents fear that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could cause their child to have the developmental disorder known as autism. These parents’ fears may have initially been sparked and fueled by a study conducted in 1998 that claimed
Parents who don’t vaccinate their children put them and others at risk because it allows normally preventable disease to continue to spread. Vaccinations have been around since 1796 and have since helped
Vaccines are like traffic lights; they ensure the safety of the public, be in heavily crowded areas, like schools, or densely trafficked roads. Traffic lights only work when all people follow the rules. If a car runs a red light, the car runs the risk of killing innocent pedestrians who are complying with the prescribed rules. Vaccines, if not utilized by most people, are ineffective. Even though some parents are concerned over the safety of vaccines, children who go to public schools should not be granted exemptions because vaccines are necessary to prevent outbreaks, children who do not receive vaccines are at risk of disease, and medically compromised children rely on vaccines to prevent disease.
Many people may think that vaccination is a bad thing, that instead of preventing it causes illness, that is not natural. Natural or not, there are many reasons as to why we should vaccinate us and the younger generation. Most of the time children don’t like vaccination because it hurt, but is the responsibility of a parent to seek the wellbeing of his or her child. Vaccination it’s a preventive measure of various diseases. Unfortunately, things like the anti-vaccination movement, the misinformation on the Internet, and the believe that vaccination causes more damage than is worth, have led our society to think that it’s right not to vaccinate.
While many people think that it’s not harmful to their children if they’re not vaccinated, they’re mistaken. There are many risks of not being vaccinated, which include disabilities and even a higher risk of catching a disease that could’ve been prevented in the first place. Not being vaccinated can sometimes lead to disability problems such as if there was an “Outbreaks of measles, mumps, and whooping cough are occurring around the United States—often among groups of children whose parents have refused to get them vaccinated”(Childhood 1). The side effects of these lead a child to catching pneumonia, inflammation in the brain, swollen and tender salivary glands under the ears and more. Based on the information that was researched vaccines, “Work really well.
When Americans gave the indians blankets laced with Polio, most of the indians died because they were not immune to the virus like the Americans were. The science behind this shows that every human has T cells and B cells. When the vaccine is administered, the T cell tell the B cell to grab onto the live virus, then the B cells make a copy of the virus to put into a “book” produced by the T cells. After the vaccine has done its job, the human body will remember that gene and the body 's defense mechanisms will fight off the virus so the body does not get sick. After a parent see’s the scientific evidence of the human body 's need for vaccines it should be very difficult for the parent to deny their child what they need.
In every case where compulsory vaccinations were challenged, the Court upheld their constitutionality because they do not infringe on any rights. Notably, in Prince v. Massachusetts, the Court ruled that mandatory vaccines do not violate freedom of religion (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 606). In fact, the Court ruled religious exemption clauses as unlawful, since they only apply to students of a recognized denomination, as concluded in Brown v. Stone and Davis v. State (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 607-608). Furthermore, mandatory vaccines do not infringe on religious freedom because, “no matter how much a law burdens religious practices it is constitutional under [Employment v.] Smith so long as it does not single out religious behavior for punishment and was not motivated by a desire to interfere with religion” (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 609).
Daddy always said your rights end where the other person’s rights begin; therefore, one individual should never impede the rights of the many. This is true in the second grade class room for teachers and mothers prohibiting peanuts for all when only one child has a peanut allergy. The same is true for parents that elect not to immunize their children running the risk of exposing other children with diseases that were previously eradicated. Diseases that Vaccines for Children (VFC) helped to “ensure …children did not contract vaccine-preventable disease because of inability to pay for vaccine and was created in response to a measles resurgence in the United States that resulted in approximately 55,000 cases …due primarily because of widespread failure to vaccine” (Whitney, Zhou, Singleton & Schuchat, 2014, p. 352).
Vaccinations When it comes to vaccinations, there are many different opinions on immunizing a child, especially when that child’s parent has a strong like or dislike towards vaccinating. Immunizations have existed for at least a thousand years and as technology advances more, there are new vaccines being designed to help protect our children from contracting contagious and sometimes deadly diseases, such as Bordetella pertussis, polio, and even influenza. For decades, all 50 states have required that parents vaccinate their children against various diseases, including polio and measles, as a prerequisite to enrolling them in public schools (Ciolli, 2008). Enrollment in public school requires up to date vaccinations in order to protect the children and even the adults from contracting and spreading a disease, possibly causing an epidemic.
I would have to side with the requirement that vaccinations should be mandatory because it is not just the health of a single individual but the health of the entire human civilization. As a Christian, I believe that vaccinations help our health. They are something that God has given us. We should use them to our best knowledge to help our body. Although, I see the reasoning behind not requiring vaccinations.