In medicine, new discoveries are made everyday. Some advancements in medicine, such as vaccines, are not as accepted as others. Requiring vaccinations can interfere with religious freedom. Also, some parents feel they should have the right to decide whether Republicans not to vaccinate their children. Another reason vaccines are controversial is that there are still many risks that come with vaccines. Clearly, vaccines should not be mandatory. People should have religious freedom when it comes to vaccines. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees religious freedom. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”(“Should Any Vaccines …show more content…
One of the most common reasons people give for requiring vaccinations is that vaccination can lead to “Herd Immunity.” In other words, the greater the percentage of people in a population that are vaccinated, the less likely it is that unvaccinated people will come into contact with a contagious person. According to one doctor, “‘Someday we may live in a world that doesn’t scare patients into making bad health decisions…. vaccine mandates are the best way to ensure protection from illnesses’”(Finnegan 2). Maybe in the future the scariest diseases will not exist. Then, vaccines will not be necessary. But the future is not now, so people need to vaccinate. Vaccines can help children stay healthy and prevent disease. “The American Academy of Pediatrics states that most childhood vaccines are 90%-95% effective in preventing disease’”(“Should Any Vaccines be Required” 1). When vaccines have that high of an efficacy rate, it just makes sense to vaccinate children. Also, when a child gets vaccinated that means they are immune to that disease for up to ten years. But after the ten years are up the child could get seriously sick, so they need to vaccinate again. Yes, vaccines are good, but at what
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreRequiring vaccinations is a highly debatable topic in the United States today. An article by Ronald Bayer, “The continuing tensions between individual rights and public health,” is one of the most reliable sources in the case study. The author has a PhD from the University of Chicago and focuses his research on issues of social justice and ethical matters. Bayer has also previously been a consultant to the World Health Organization on ethical issues related to public health. This makes him very knowledgeable about the topic and a highly credible source.
Immunizations can save a child’s life; due to the medical advances that have taken place, kids are now protected from many illness/ diseases. At one point in time, Polio was a horrible illness that is now preventable by simply receiving a shot (USDHHS, n.d.). Immunizations protect not only the individual receiving the vaccination, but others as well. Certain individuals are not suitable for specific vaccinations, therefore, if everyone else has the vaccination, the people who cannot are more likely to be safe from the illness (USDHHS, n.d). Generally, immunizations are safe, effective, cheaper in the long run, and can save families time.
It is believed that an individual’s medical choices should not be governed. This is also a valid point. However, the decision to not vaccinate ones child not only affects the child’s health but the health of others. This point alone validates why it necessary to mandate vaccinations for all
The question of whether or not children should be vaccinated has being in the minds or parents for quite a long time and parents in California will no longer be able to make that decision. California legislature has passed a new law that requires every child attending school to be vaccinated. The only exception to this rule will be for medical reasons, not religious or personal reasons. Parents are now questioning whether or not California lawmakers have the authority to have a say in their children lives. Although it may seem as if California lawmakers are trying to control your child’s life, vaccines do have significant benefits.
In every case where compulsory vaccinations were challenged, the Court upheld their constitutionality because they do not infringe on any rights. Notably, in Prince v. Massachusetts, the Court ruled that mandatory vaccines do not violate freedom of religion (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 606). In fact, the Court ruled religious exemption clauses as unlawful, since they only apply to students of a recognized denomination, as concluded in Brown v. Stone and Davis v. State (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 607-608). Furthermore, mandatory vaccines do not infringe on religious freedom because, “no matter how much a law burdens religious practices it is constitutional under [Employment v.] Smith so long as it does not single out religious behavior for punishment and was not motivated by a desire to interfere with religion” (Chemerinsky, Goodwin 609).
It is important for all people to be vaccinated to protect themselves from contracting communicable diseases, from spreading these diseases, and from the high cost of treating these preventable diseases. It would make sense to do so. No one wants to contract diseases, or be laid up if they can prevent it. Getting vaccinated will prevent anyone from spreading contracted diseases to others. It can also be very costly when trying to treating a communicable disease that could have been prevented with a vaccine.
I would have to side with the requirement that vaccinations should be mandatory because it is not just the health of a single individual but the health of the entire human civilization. As a Christian, I believe that vaccinations help our health. They are something that God has given us. We should use them to our best knowledge to help our body. Although, I see the reasoning behind not requiring vaccinations.
Your sick child takes a drink without you looking, you take a drink after him not knowing that he is carrying the flu virus. You get up in the middle of the night, feeling sick to your stomach, running a fever, and feeling queasy. You think back to the last time you have shared or gotten close to anyone sick, you remember that your child is sick and think back to the last time you or him got a flu vaccine, or any vaccine. Vaccines help protect us from sickness and build up antigens to fight the virus off. Children should get vaccines for the protection of others.
One of the many benefits of vaccinating children is it saves them from life-threatening diseases. The many diseases which children are immunized from include, Measles, Mumps, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), Polio, Hepatitis A and B and much more. Long before the time of vaccines, there was a shocking rate of deaths that occurred worldwide.
How likely is it for a child to get a disease? “Statistically, the chance of your child getting a vaccine-preventable disease may be relatively low. You are making a wager” (Childhood 1). Mainly, parents don’t want their children to be vaccinated in order to attend public school or tend to lack taking them on time to get the shots. A vaccination is being introduced to the body which will then produce an immunity to a specific disease.
Required Immunity Mandatory vaccinations for children in public schools have been the center of much debate since laws were first developed to regulate immunization. Fears from parents about side effects and adverse reactions have steered many away from wanting to vaccinate their children despite the numerous infectious diseases they prevent. These debates have gotten in the way of progression in schools for preventing the spread of disease. To me, the risks of not vaccinating children are far greater than the risks of adverse reactions.
Globally, vaccination has proved as a tremendous asset in curbing the spread of communicable diseases. Communicable disease such as smallpox, which is highly infectious, was thoroughly eradicated in the 20th century with the help of vaccines. Other notorious contagious diseases, such as measles, polio and rubella are also in the brink of eradication in this modern age through the widespread application of vaccines. By implementing mandatory vaccination, it’s not impossible to achieve that due to vaccination preventing new human carriers of disease from appearing. As vaccination prevents an individual from contracting a particular disease, the individual will not be a carrier for that disease, thus limiting the spread of the disease to others.
Vaccinations can help prevent future diseases or viruses in the upcoming life of a child. According to an article from vaccines.gov, “Because of advances in medical science, your child can be protected against more diseases than ever before. Some diseases that once injured or killed thousands of children, have been eliminated completely and others are close to extinction- primarily due to stay safe and effective vaccinations.” Throughout the years more viruses have been prevented due to vaccinations in children. There has also been an increase in the amount of children that get vaccinations at a young age.
Many people may think that vaccination is a bad thing, that instead of preventing it causes illness, that is not natural. Natural or not, there are many reasons as to why we should vaccinate us and the younger generation. Most of the time children don’t like vaccination because it hurt, but is the responsibility of a parent to seek the wellbeing of his or her child. Vaccination it’s a preventive measure of various diseases. Unfortunately, things like the anti-vaccination movement, the misinformation on the Internet, and the believe that vaccination causes more damage than is worth, have led our society to think that it’s right not to vaccinate.
Vaccines are able to prevent disease in a single child, but their usefulness to society lies in their ability to prevent outbreaks. Vaccines prevent disease through the concept of herd immunity. Herd immunity is the idea that a disease will have a harder time spreading if the majority of the population is unable to contract it (Martinez). For example, if more than 90 percent of people are vaccinated against measles, an outbreak is unlikely to happen even if a person in the community is infected (Oster).