Remember getting chickenpox as a kid? The parties that mom’s would have where kids would all go to someone’s house that had contracted it so they could get the virus and work it out into immunity? Nowadays they have vaccinations for everything – even the chickenpox. As these advancements continue to surface, the concerns about the potential side-effects of these vaccinations surface along with them, and the result is the requirements for vaccinated children are becoming a hot topic. Matt and I struggled at first with the different choices regarding the vaccinations of our daughters. We agonized through each one because of the frightening things we heard about vaccinations and their potential effects on children. As a side note, both Sydney and Maddox are being vaccinated and have done well with them.<\/p>\n
So anyways, in another thread on Alas<\/a>, vaccination discussions have surfaced due to the controversial HPV vaccine. What was interesting to me was that instead of the debate being about whether or not trace amounts of mercury are going to cause reactions, or whether by immunizing against anything we are weakening ourselves against everything, the theme is whether forced immunizations are similar to forced pregnancies. Gee wiz, I’d never even considered it that way, but I can see how the comparison could be made. So it got me to thinking, and here is how I feel the two are different, and how they are the same.<\/p>\n Herd Immunity v. Individual Choice:<\/b> The most interesting idea to me that first grabbed my attention was the notion of ‘herd immunity’. Barbara made a good post explaining herd immunity this way:<\/p>\n Someone made the point that when it is forced on someone for the sake of others, how is that different from forcing someone to bear a pregnancy. For pro-choice people, we argue that we should after all have the right to decide what goes in and comes out of our body, full stop, right?<\/p>\n M had a pretty good response to this, that as a parent of a five month old infant I can certainly understand:<\/p>\n Even so, after some time thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I don’t agree with forced vaccination, but I don’t agree that it’s like a forced pregnancy either. This is why; a forced vaccination is intended to protect and secure the health of the individual it is forced on, as well as others around them that are fully endowed with all rights given to a born person. A forced pregnancy on the other hand is to protect and secure the health of a potential person<\/i> that is not fully or even partially endowed with the same rights at the expense or health of a fully endowed person<\/i>. That to me seems like a pretty big difference, regardless of which end of the forced or suggested spectrum you fall within regarding vaccinations.<\/p>\n Forced versus Pressured:<\/b> Is ‘forced’ used in the same context or does it have the same meaning in these two cases. When we look at what forced means in the context of vaccinations, the force is of a bureaucratic nature. It occurs by schools refusing to teach children that have not been inoculated, or refusing to allow them to come to school if they have gotten a waiver when outbreaks occur. That doesn’t really seem like ‘force’ to me, but instead precaution. I’m hard pressed to think of what a legitimate argument would be to this being a form of discrimination or undue force. It has options that are reasonable<\/i> for the people who choose to forego on vaccinations. Forced pregnancy, on the other hand, has the very real potential of compromising and altering the health and physical make-up of the woman hosting the pregnancy. Forced pregnancy doesn’t offer choice, other than adoption, which isn’t really what I’d consider reasonable after making a woman go through the entirety of a pregnancy.<\/p>\n So at the end of the day, while I don’t agree forcing vaccinations on others (though I do strongly recommend that people research and consider vaccinations for the sake of their children and others), I’m going to have to give a thumbs-down on the argument that forcing vaccinations and forcing pregnancy are like arguments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So anyways, in another thread on Alas<\/a>, vaccinations have become a hot topic, but not for the normal reasons. Instead of the debate being about whether or not trace amounts of mercury are going to cause reactions, or whether by immunizing against everything we are weakening ourselves against everything, the theme is whether forced immunizations are similar to forced pregnancies. Continue reading