Mother who refused to bring son's vaccinations up to date sentenced to 7 days in jail

But, no indication that the mother is irresponsible, in general, simply trying to do the best for her kid she can (even if she is wrong). Vaccinations can be mandated by the courts without taking parental rights away. And there is no reason to think the alleged neglect reflected by the anti-vaxx stance will translate into other areas of parenting. That kid probably had to wear a helmet to ride his Big Wheel given his mother's fear of extremely unlikely catastrophes.

As for the children around them, there is not real difference in risk if he is the only one. But, if there are more all clustered together, are you going to take children away from all of those families?

Maybe I'm sensitive as a father. Something already rubs me wrong about a court potentially ordering that I have to inject my children with something I think could be dangerous. What happened to my right of privacy and all that? The government can't stop an abortion, but they can make me take injectables? I have counter-arguments and I'm not objecting, but I already find this a pretty galling imposition. Then you want to add on to that a threat to take my children away if I will not conform, if I object and fight? That's too much.

 

If people could arbitrarily decide what vaccines they wanted, polio would still be a thing.

It is a law for the good of society, not an option.

 

By the same logic, I may as a parent think that is best for my children to get beaten to teach them discipline.
I'm simply trying to do the best for my kid as I can. ALL the best intentions in the world.
Are you going to take them away from me? What happened to my right of privacy??


Vaccinations have become like voting nowadays. We take things for granted.
Certain that there will be no epidemic because those dangerous diseases only exist in 3rd world countries...
certain that there will be no extremist party getting more power..
.and we decide that since that won't make any difference why bother? There's no danger.
Our ancenstors have spilled blood and thousands of lives have lost for us to have those privileges and we simply couldn't care less.

As for the danger, this kid can get infected by say measles, when he meets an unvaccinated illegal immigrant on the subway. He can develop only mild symptoms at the beggining,go to the park sneezes on 1 year old, and the baby dies.
Who is responsible for the death? God? Or the mother who "thought it was best" to allow her child to become a source of a dangerous infectious disease?

 

A decent corollary because (at least in the US) there is a gray area about corporal discipline. Obviously, there is an extent of physical abuse of your child that is absolutely illegal and absolutely will result in losing custody. But, even if people, society, government, or courts think that spanking is not good parenting, we still allow parents some latitude to decide for themselves up to a certain point. Even in cases where Child Protective Services gets involved, they don't immediately go to the ban hammer if lesser actions can be corrective. So yeah, I think the logic is the same, except that corporal punishment exists on a spectrum and the choice about vaccination is more of a binary.

As for the dangers of anti-vax, I'm not going to argue about that at all. I am not opposed to vaccinations, nor do I want to support the rights of parents to refuse vaccinations. I guess I'm just saying let's be reasonable and measured here because we're talking about the use of some high-powered government tools here in very sensitive areas in people's lives.

 

I think the state (and by that I mean any state) has an interest in protecting the health of the general population. If enough people think they shouldn't immunize their children, it endangers those in the general population that can't get immunized due to an allergy or other health condition that rely on everyone else to get it so that their own risk remains low.

And that's not even mentioning that you are endangering the life of your child. I think it's very different than an abortion.