Redditor's child cant be vaccinated so relies on other children to be vaccinated. You can probably see where this is going. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
318 ups - 93 downs = 225 votes
226 comments submitted at 14:10:13 on May 19, 2014 by One_Wheel_Drive
It sucks that your kid can't be vaccinated because of medical issues but at the same time, it's not society's responsibility to care for your kid.
So, what's the point of society then? If society isn't about looking after other people, what's it for?
I don't think you understand what society is.
Yes it is.
No it's not. It's your responsibility to care for your own children/family/whatever, and to make sure that they are as safe as possible. If your kid is immuno-suppressed it's your job to make sure that he/she is as protected as possible before he comes into contact with the rest of the world.
Sorry to say but if you're immuno-suppresed, unvaccinated people are the least of your worries.
I tend to think that anti-vaccers are idiots because why wouldn't you get yourself and your kids vaccinated but I think they should have a right to say "no" to vaccines. That is, the government shouldn't be able to force them to get vaccinated.
At the same time, we should be allowed to deny them medical services and access to public schooling. Not only for the safety of other kids but for their safety as well. After all, every choice has a consequence.
Article 1, Section 8 of the US constitution as well as the preamble show that the government's responsibility is to promote and protect the general welfare of the citizens. Not dying from treatable and preventable illness constitutes general welfare, IMO
The government shouldn't have the right to force anyone to get a medical procedure they don't want.
citizens shouldn't have the right to endanger the weakest members of society by fucking up herd immunity for no reason.
> citizens shouldn't have the right to endanger the weakest members of society by fucking up herd immunity for no reason.
Except that for some people there are legitimate religious reasons for not wanting vaccination and we must protect their rights as we protect all religious freedom.
What if, for religious reasons, the parents of a child were unwilling to give him or her, say, insulin? Chemotherapy? A cast? The Heimlich maneuver?
> What if, for religious reasons, the parents of a child were unwilling to give him or her, say, insulin? Chemotherapy? A cast? The Heimlich maneuver?
I'm fine with that, actually.
Uh huh. I knew I had you tagged as "fucking tool" for a reason.
You went too far there. Poor trolling attempt 2/10.
I really don't understand redditors sometimes. They get pissed, calling for revolution, when they learn the government is recording who they email but at the same time want to give the government the power to forcibly inject people.
Snooping on communications is a bigger invasion of human rights than taking away people's choice of what goes in their bodies. There has to be some cognitive dissonance going on here.
Yeah, I don't get it either.
Heaven forbid the government take away net neutrality but it's perfectly fine to forcibly inject people with something they may not want to be injected with.
I think the reasoning behind the autism anti-vaccers is stupid but goddamnit, I'll protect their rights to refuse vaccination because I don't want the government to have the ability to force me to do anything related to my healthcare.
Except not vaccinating hurts others.
I'm sorry but if I'm fully vaccinated then how am I going to be "hurt" by someone who isn't?
Only other, non-vaccinated people are at risk and they seemingly know the risk of not being vaccinated.
If you willfully fail to get a vaccination you put those at risk who can not physically get the vaccination.
People who are vaccinated are safe with the vaccine. However not all vaccines are 100% effective. By adding a level of herd immunity you decrease your chances even more.
You're missing the point of the entire argument that this thread is based on.
If someone is immunosuppressed, taking vaccines will kill them. These individuals rely on everyone around them being vaccinated.
Therefore, the point we're making is that it may be true that you won't be hurt, there are others who aren't so lucky.
Since I take advantage of so much of what modern society has to offer, I'm willing to submit and defer to many of it's impositions on my personal freedom. It seems like a lot of people fail to recognize the benefits they receive from living in a first world country like the US and see any imposition on them as an affront to their liberty.
It's frustrating to me that you're getting downvotes for an opinion that seems perfectly reasonable. A parent does have the responsibility of making sure their child's life is protected, and the government does not have the right to force any sort of medical procedure on a person. I especially like the last part. I mean, you're basically saying "You don't want to vaccinate your kid? Whatevs, nobody should force it on you, but we're gonna make you feel that bad decision."
I don't usually find myself agreeing with you, and there is a small part of me that sort of wishes we could make them vaccinate their kids, but yours is a perfectly understandable and moderate opinion to have.
> A parent does have the responsibility of making sure their child's life is protected, and the government does not have the right to force any sort of medical procedure on a person.
What is a responsibility without consequence? If by 'responsibility' you mean duty or obligation, then failing to fulfill that obligation can and should carry consequences.
I get your worry -- we don't want government officials dictating our lives -- but you're conflating 'forcing a medical procedure on an informed adult who is calable of providing consent but who has refused to do so' with 'forcing a proven medical procedure on a child over the uninformed and in fact incorrect objections of her parents.' Basically, you're saying that while the government may not force medical procedures, it's perfectly acceptable for parents to force (or deny, as the case may be) same.
Seven short years ago, an eleven-year-old Wisconsin girl died of ketoacidosis. She was a type-1 diabetic, and her illness and eventual death could easily have been avoided by an insulin shot. A fucking insulin shot. Instead, her parents chose to pray for divine healing. It is apparently your position that this outcome -- the death of a sixth grade girl who was not qualified to provide or withhold consent on her own behalf -- is acceptable, and that the state cannot have interfered had they known about it.
If that's actually your view, you're effectively saying idiot parents have the right to bring about their children's deaths through their idiocy, and at most the state may prosecute these idiot parents only after the child dies. I assume you would not advocate for the removal of other children from these households, unless that removal was conducted using a zippered bag.
Again, I get your concern, but surely we have a duty as a society to ensure that children who lost the parent lottery get something resembling a fair shake. Insulin is a proven treatment for diabetes, just as vaccines are proven preventions of their respective diseases. I don't see how you could argue that we cannot insist on vaccinations (when there is no medical reason to avoid them), but we can insist on insulin shots for child diabetics. I realize you haven't said that, but as I see it you are committed to allowing both or denying both.
Not just what you sais but I run into this issue all the time. You are a parent but not an educated healthcare provider!
Leave medicine to those that know what they are doing.
I was simply giving support to what I feel is a perfectly reasonable opinion for a person to have. I don't even feel very strongly about it. My daughter is vaccinated, any other kids I have will also be, and that's pretty much all I feel I should have to do on it.
I understand, but you see why the simple version is problematic -- saying the state cannot force parents to submit their children to any proven medical procedure entails letting idiot parents effectively cause their children to die. The ketoacidosis case is actually a poor example, because her parents' refusal to give her an insulin shot only affected her; anti-vaxxers' refusals to vaccinate their children affects everybody.
Even if we were to say it's okay for those asshats to deny the insulin shot (which I am not saying), one could still say that the state can demand e.g. vaccination -- indeed, I don't think anybody would reasonably deny the state's obligation to enforce a quarantine in some cases, which is tantamount to saying the state may in fact enforce certain policies on behalf of the broader population.
Anyway, this particular drama clearly makes for good popcorn, for better or for worse.
> A parent does have the responsibility of making sure their child's life is protected, and the government does not have the right to force any sort of medical procedure on a person. I especially like the last part. I mean, you're basically saying "You don't want to vaccinate your kid? Whatevs, nobody should force it on you, but we're gonna make you feel that bad decision."
Like I said, all decisions have consequences. The government shouldn't force any parent to perform a medical procedure on their kid if they don't want to do it. However, a parent that decides not to vaccinate needs to understand that decision will close a lot of doors for them. Including public education and public healthcare. Knowing all of that, if you are willing to take on that extra responsibility go right ahead and refuse vaccination.
My other point is that if you are a parent of an unvaccinated child (for whatever reason, medical or loonytunes otherwise) you can't assume that every other person your kid runs into is going to be vaccinated. Hence, it's not the responsibility of society to make sure your kid is safe.
Yes it is your responsibility to make sure your child is safe, however some people are not fit parents. If everyone was sensible and took their child's welfare seriously that would be one thing, but people are dumb and will make bad decisions. That's why we have CPS, because parents and people in general make bad decisions and some do it so often that they are not fit for that responsibility. Should the child suffer because the parent is unfit? They didn't have a choice in what parents they were born to.
There's a HUGE difference between being an unfit, "abusive" parent and not getting your child vaccinated.
If you willfully let your child do something that is out of the norm of society and could very easily cause their death because of your perceived notions about science that you know nothing about. Then yes you are an unfit parent. Honestly are you going to try and defend the idea that we should as a society willfully allow diseases to spread? How about the guy handling your food, should he be required to wash his hands? Or does that fall under choices that shouldn't be regulated also.
> If you willfully let your child do something that is out of the norm of society and could very easily cause their death because of your perceived notions about science that you know nothing about. Then yes you are an unfit parent.
I disagree, especially if you are anti-vaccination for religious purposes.
Like I said earlier, I disagree with the "vaccines cause autism" crowd but I do support their right to not have their kids vaccinated if only because I don't like the government having any say in my medical decisions.
>How about the guy handling your food, should he be required to wash his hands? Or does that fall under choices that shouldn't be regulated also.
Washing your hands is not a medical procedure, therefore that's a really bad example.
Actually washing your hands is part of a medical procedure. To improve his question would you be ok with a surgeon not washing (scrubbing) before working on you?
Question. If I have bubonic plague, do I get to refuse treatment? Or is there a danger limit?
We give up some freedoms to live in an orderly society. We aren't free to murder, steal, rape, pillage, out fuck things up for the rest of society. Your individual liberty goes away when it directly threatens people's lives. This has been true since we had civilization.
Part of that means that your responsibility as a citizen is to not spread disease everywhere. You wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, and get vaccinated. If you get a horrible infectious disease, you don't spread it to other people.
When you decide to break that social contract with 300 million other human beings, depending on where you live, the government is obliged to step in and fix your shitty decision for the rest of us. That's why we have a government. The fact that it makes some people personally uncomfortable is their own issue.
I don't give a Fuck if they think they'll be fine without it. Same as if a dude brandishes a gun in the middle of a store. Fuck his rights, I don't want to get shot, and I don't want to get the flu because some fucknut watched a shitty YouTube video about vaccines causing cancer.
> Question. If I have bubonic plague, do I get to refuse treatment?
Yeah, I think you do.
It's your right to die of bubonic plague if you want.
That is one of the stupidest, most poorly thought out, uninformed opinions I have heard in a long, long time.
The reason we haven't had a plague in so long, like a proper plague, is because modern medicine, which includes vaccines, is incredibly effective. A big part of modern medicine is preventative care.
If you don't like that part of society go live in the forest where you can freely die far away from the rest of us, since most of us would rather not get violently I'll because some people can't live in the real world.
> Question. If I have bubonic plague, do I get to refuse treatment?
I think you should change that question, and ask him something like this:
If he says yes, he's an idiot. If he says no, he has conceded the point: the state may (and in some cases should) enforce certain behaviors, including some medical procedures.
Is it not society's responsibility to ensure the survival of as many of the species as possible?
I'd say not really. There's an acceptable level of death in society that allows us to have other freedoms and such. The government could certainly do more to ensure the survival of more people (e.g. banning all sorts of dangerous activities) but this is usually balanced against providing people with liberty to do things they want.
I'm talking about society itself, not just the government. Even if it's allowed by the government, aren't dangerous activities or general apathy to your own health heavily discouraged/stigmatized in general?
Driving is probably the most dangerous thing most of us do on a regular basis. We accept the risk because the benefits far outweigh it. If cars were illegal (or heavily discouraged by society) then more of our species would survive.
And the government heavily controls driving, issues licenses, minimum insurance, also makes traffic laws, paves the roads and makes sure they are in good condition... It is in societies best interest that when we drive, hazards are minimized.
> paves the roads and make sure they are in good condition.
Have you been to PA?
He said "survival of as many of the species as possible". That's much different than minimizing hazards when driving
Except isn't that trying to ensure the survival of as many people as possible? Driving allows access to resources that people would otherwise not have access to, like hospitals or grocery stores, that people could die from not having. It's still made as safe as possible and everyone who drives is responsible for being a safe driver.
That's just picking apart one example. What are the benefits of allowing people to eat food that is terrible for you with zero nutritional value? This type of food cannot save any lives but likely cause people to die sooner than they otherwise would.
If it has a caloric value it does, in fact, have a nutritional value, even if it's not very good in comparison to other things you could be eating.
Also, bad eating habits are frowned upon and things symptomatic of bad eating (obesity and anorexia) are stigmatized.
Well even more so, the government wants to basically prevent this happening again which is a much bigger deal than roads.
Fair enough. Let's apply that analysis to vaccines then. How does the cost/benefit for society work out from that?
I'm gonna say the whole "practical elimination of life-threatening diseases" thing trumps pretty much any argument one might make against vaccines regardless of your platform, unless your platform is based on ignorance ("vaccines don't really work!"/"vaccines cause more problems than the diseases they prevent!") conspiracy ("vaccines work but they enable big brother to control us in some way!"/"herd immunity doesn't real!"), or some sort of drastic hyperconservationary philosophy ("Mother Earth knows best, let diseases wipe out the weak!").
I'm not arguing against vaccines. I'm arguing that it's not society's job to ensure the "survival of as many of the species as possible" in every circumstance.
Yeah, but why would you willingly leave your fellow man to die?
That's not what I was saying. Parent above me implied that it's society's responsibility to ensure the survival of as many of the species as possible. That's much different than saving an individual from dying
The probability of a group's survival increases if an individual can be helped with little-to-no cost.
> it's not society's responsibility to care for your kid.
Shall we shut down all those publicly funded orphanages too then? Because y'know, Fuck children.
"Fuck you, got mine."
Mantra of the libertarian.
IIRC, in the U.S. at least, "orphanages" aren't really a thing. It's basically all foster care at this point, from what I'v heard.
Quibbling aside, I agree with your point.
Are you /u/LBDamned's new account?
> /u/LBDamned
No.
Oh okay. I was just asking because that's the crazy guy posting all this vaccine shit.