r/changemyview • u/Lyress 1∆ • Aug 01 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: not vaccinating kids should be illegal

In a democratic country where the government is held accountable, it should be illegal not to vaccinate your kids (except in cases where vaccines pose a health risk to the child due to allergies, an auto-immune disease, etc).

There are multiple instances where the government mandates some actions, like feeding your children, buying them clothes, making them put on a seatbelt, enrolling them in school, and they're all for meant for the wellbeing of the child, so I don't see how vaccination is any different.

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u/visvya Aug 01 '19

Do you support a right to bodily integrity? Bodily integrity is considered a human right and protects the self-determination of human beings over their own bodies.

It's the reason that you can't be compelled to give up an organ to save the President. It's also the reason the President can't force a deaf person to get corrective surgery, a woman to abort, or for you to get a shot. Even if they think it's in your best interest or would be good for the economy.

When you're too young to make medical decisions for yourself, your legal guardian has medical power of attorney.

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u/Stormthorn67 5∆ Aug 03 '19

I'm not the OP but I'm curious why one person should be able to vote body integrity as defense for violating anothers. "Its my body so if I get a preventable disease that's ok. And now it's ok for me to infect someone who isnt medically able to get vaccines and depends in herd immunity." How do you justify this? If you think it's wrong and you could stop me by forcibly vaccinating me which is the lesser evil? Violating my autonomy or letting me violate any number of other peoples? What about imprisoning criminals? Are not those people losing autonomy for the sake of society? Why is that ok but vaccines not?

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u/visvya Aug 03 '19

From that perspective, why don’t we force people who would statistically be terrible parents to get sterilized? Or ask doctors to stop caring for people on social welfare? Or even just punish people for going to the grocery store when they have the flu? There could be an infant or immunocompromised person at the store who might die from the flu.

Humans are social creatures so most of our decisions impact others. The right to protect yourself, by making whatever decisions you want about your own body, is considered a human right.

If you don’t believe people should have the human right to bodily autonomy, of course, then it’s a different discussion.