Quote:
Originally Posted by Cardus
The none of your "god-damned business" argument does not always cut it.
I happened to come across a well-reasoned portion of John Podhoretz' nationally syndicated column, with which I agree:
"The diseases for which we immunize babies and toddlers are airborne or communicated by casual contact.
Now, it’s true that keeping a proper balance between the rights of individuals and families in the private sphere and the obligations placed upon us as parts of a national whole is a core issue in a self-governing society like the United States.
The problem is that vaccination is the worst possible issue to stake a claim for the private sphere, because the only way societies can stamp out infectious diseases for which vaccines have been discovered is to insist that everybody get them.
This is the concept of “herd immunity”: No vaccine offers perfect protection, but if everyone is vaccinated, the few isolated cases won’t spread — and all cases will become exceedingly rare.
Thus, your supposed “right” not to vaccinate your child actually impinges on my child’s right to the promise in the Declaration of Independence of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
If my infant hasn’t yet been immunized and gets measles or mumps or whooping cough from your toddler, whom you chose not to immunize, he has been placed at unnecessary risk of loss of life.
You’d only choose not to immunize your child because you thought the risk to your child outweighed the possible good.
But in doing so, you’d be committing an act of thievery of a kind — stealing the herd immunity of others to secure the health of your child without doing a thing to extend it to others."
|
And people freaking about ebola, and demanding a vaccine....while a once eliminated, far more easily apread disease makes a comeback.
one of my pet peeves has always been poor kids paying for their parents stupidity.
far, far better chance of a kid getting sick because of no vaccine than from getting a vaccine.