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I am afraid I cannot say yes or no as to me it depends on the vaccinations and what country. It also depends on if there is a strong medical consensus that certain vaccinations are still necessary for certain conditions. For example, it would be ridiculous to make it mandatory that everyone got a Smallpox vaccination, as well as a waste of medical expenses. Nonetheless, for some conditions, if it is still necessary then yes I think it should be mandatory especially in the case of children but they don't necearrily have to be vaccinate at school.
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I think I may have worded my argument in an erratic way lol. What I meant is that there might be some third world countries that force people to take unnecessary vaccinations. But I might just be appealing to possibility here.
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Yes for me they should. Parents should be fined heavily if they don't comply as vaccination is done for the general good and any objections are based on ignorance which can lead to serious consequences for their children and others
@piloteer. The wanting to limit government control part of me says no, but because not getting vaccines can produce serious consequences to minors who dont get a decision and people other than those who refuse them, i feel as though they must be mandatory.
Yes for me they should. Parents should be fined heavily if they don't comply as vaccination is done for the general good and any objections are based on ignorance which can lead to serious consequences for their children and others
Perhaps in most cases an objectionable stance on mandatory vaccinations stems from ignorance, but I'm against mandatory vaccinations, and I would challenge anybody to demonstrate my ignorance of the issue, because I'm not an anti-vaxer, and I do believe vaccines are safe and everybody should keep them updated. I find no merit in the policy itself though.
Bodily autonomy is supreme and is the most basic manifestation of individual liberty. If the government starts infringing on that, then people should really start considering that, perhaps, they do not need the government any more.
People who are afraid of something can get vaccinated, and the fact that others are not vaccinated will not affect them in any way. Others can play a dice. Everybody wins, except for authoritarians who always want to control how others live their lives.
Humanity has existed without vaccinations for dozens thousands years and was doing just fine. The notion that, just because vaccinations nowadays are easily available and safe, they should be mandated, is ridiculous and runs contrary to the most basic notions of freedom. It is a nod to the darker times, when church ran everything and told people how they should live their lives. Anti-abortion stances, anti-organ trade stances, anti-euthanasia stances, etc. belong to the same category. They all rest on the assumption that a person's body is not their sole property, and that is a scary notion indeed.
No worries, no offence was taken. I pasted and copied a debate I had on DebateArt regarding this matter. I went against Whiteflame, so obviously I lost, but I still think my argument is solid. My opponent was trying to prove that our government and medical community has a responsibility to implement policies that are "net beneficial" for all of society.
-------------My argument from Dart.------------
Untried, untested, and unproven.
A vaccination mandate has never been tried before, not only in the United States, but anywhere, so that leaves us without any reliable statistics to argue his case. Whatever scientific data that we would hope to have to prove that a mandate is "net beneficial", simply does not exist. If we can find any net beneficial nature to anything, it will be in the vaccination itself, and not the mandate. It is my hope to demolish any theoretical bridge that he tries to use to link the benefits of vaccinations, to a mandate. Please remember, he will be able to present a lot of evidence about the benefits of the MMR vaccine, but that is not what this debate is about. We are arguing about the "net benefit" of a vaccination mandate, and nothing more. For the most part, I won't be challenging him on the "net benefit" of MMR, so any literature he is able to throw at you regarding vaccinations will be a waste of his and your time. I'm only really going to challenge the mandate itself!!!!!
It can be argued that a vaccine mandate was attempted in the USSR to address a diphtheria outbreak, but the stats on this are spotty and totally unreliable, so it can't really be verified whether it actually happened. However, there is reliable data that links high vaccination rates to government programs that offset the cost and help with the availability of vaccinations. On the flip side of this, there is no evidence which shows that even the most aggressive vaccine policies are able to drastically increase vaccination rates in a population. Australia can be considered a case study of that point. Australia employs programs that offsets the cost of compulsory vaccinations that are required for children and adults to attend school. The vaccines that are covered by the program have high rates of vaccination coverage, while others that are not covered have very low rates of coverage. Saudi Arabia achieved "full coverage" in 1990 without the need of a mandate. It has been shown that because most of the people in Saudi Arabia have no trouble affording vaccinations, they have been able to have (arguably)the highest rates of vaccination coverage in the world. Saudi Arabia also employs a comprehensive public awareness program that helps to convince their society of the benefits of vaccinations. A study has shown that only about 1% of people in Saudi Arabia have doubts about the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations.
It can be argued that Slovenia has one of the most aggressive compulsory vaccine policies in the world. Even medical exemptions must be brought before a medical committee who needs to sign off on the verification of said exemption. Yet, there is no evidence that suggests that Slovenia has ever been able to achieve drastically higher vaccination rates than any of their neighbors with comparitably lax vaccination policies. Overall, Europe is considered to have high vaccination rates despite of an active antivaxxer community there. On the flip side of that, Africa is considered to have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world. The evidence is undeniable, low vaccination rates are tied to the cost and availability of vaccinations, and lack of dynamic public awareness initiatives, not the antivaxxer community, and not a lack of a mandate.
My opponent will have no statistical evidence that shows a mandate won't cause people to reject vaccinations because they'll view it to be a violation of their civil liberty. He will need to prove to us that a mandate will certainly not cause many in the public to become skeptical or even fearful of the medical community, because they may see it as an overbearing government policy that invades their freedom of choice. We are talking about forcing a medicine upon people who are fearful of it. We are talking about not even attempting to persuade them, but forcing it on them, and my opponent will be totally unable to prove that a mandate will produce the opposite effect of what we want, which is herd immunization. It will not be proven that a mandate is "net beneficial" for society!!!
2. There are already effective laws in place in the United States, they're just not being enforced.
There are reliable studies that show the benefits to compulsory vaccinations for children and adults who attend school. But in the past two decades, there has been a backlash to rules that were considered to be a violation of peoples civil liberties. Currently, there are only three states that don't allow for any vaccination exemptions aside from medical exemptions. All other states allow for exemptions on religious grounds, and the rest allow exemptions of religious and philosophical grounds. A study of school children in California has shown that when compulsory vaccinations are enforced properly, vaccination rates for people attending school do indeed rise, sometimes dramatically. Compulsory vaccination laws should not be misconstrued with a mandate. They're simply laws put in place to protect people who assemble in large groups for several hours a day. These laws aren't a mandate, you aren't required by law to be vaccinated. The only requirement is for those who will be attending school. You can choose homeschooling. I will argue that it is not a lack of a mandate that puts the public at risk, but the lack of enforcement of compulsory rules, and the ease of claiming an exemption, that puts the public at risk. It's worth noting that there's no guarantee every state will properly enforce a mandate. With this kind of public backlash against vaccinations, perhaps the choice of action would be public outreach programs aimed at educating the public about the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations. A mandate seems ineffective when it comes to educating the public. There is currently no public programs aimed at teaching adults of the threat of disease, and the benefit of vaccinations. A mandate will be impotent when it comes to addressing the problem of public attitudes toward vaccines.
3. There is a disconnect between the medical community and the public.
Obviously a culture of discord exists between the medical community and the antivaxxer community. This is indicative of a culture wide phenom known as the "echoe chamber effect". We can point to the antivaxxer community and claim they're purposely ignoring evidence, but is the medical not guilty of ignoring evidence themselves? There is an attitude among healthcare providers that there are only two kinds of people when it comes to vaccinations. Those who are up to date with their vaccinations, and the antivaxxer community. But who are the people in between? A study in Ohio has shown that out of all the adults who were interviewed, around 35% of them did not realize that they need to keep up to date with their vaccinations because either a) they thought that adults immune systems were strong enough to keep them safe, or b) because they thought that since they received vaccinations when they were children, there was no need for them to keep up to date with their vaccinations. These people aren't necessarily antivaxxers, and this points to an urgent need for educating the public, but the medical community has opted out of the debate entirely and turned their focus to enforcement of a mandate. There's also a new trend among healthcare providers to not receive any patients who are not up to date with their vaccinations. This points to a disturbing trend that the medical community is either unable, or unwilling to teach the public, even when there's an obvious need for them to do so. They are just as guilty of living in an echoe chamber as the antivaxxers are!
4. No comprehensive public awareness initiatives exist to make adults aware.
There is an ebb and flow when it comes to public attitudes toward vaccines. There was a time when the public was begging for a cure to debilitating diseases. Our Grandparents will remember the fear around polio. Everyone knew someone who was effected, and anyone could be next. We are three or four generations removed from a time when the public had a fear of disease. Because of the effectiveness of past vaccination programs, our society has become complacent to dangers of disease, and even has begun wondering if there is truly a need for vaccinations. If a disease no longer seems to be a threat to the public, then the public will obviously not be threatened by it, even though they should be. One would think that the medical community would be able to pick up on this trend, because the antivax community is nothing new and has been around virtually since the beginning of vaccinations or inoculation was in use. Yet, there is absolutely no public awareness initiatives that exists to educate adults on the need to keep up to date with their vaccinations. As I've pointed out before that high vaccination rates are tied to cost and availability, it's just as strongly tied to public awareness. There's an obvious need for this, but the medical community has nothing in the way of education. This point in juxtaposition with my last point, shows that there's a "perfect storm" scenario here, and the medical community is not going far enough when it comes to public outreach programs. We need public awareness initiatives, and we need it NOW!!!! My opponent will not be able to provide evidence which shows that a mandate will only prove to widen the disconnect between the medical community and the public.
5. The mumps vaccine may not be adequate to reach herd immunization.
In 2006, an outbreak of the mumps took place in several midwestern states. Studies have shown that this outbreak occurred in areas that had high vaccination rates against mumps. If my opponent is going to argue that to be "net beneficial" we have to reach herd immunity, then it's worth pointing out that herd immunity may not be conceivable as it is now with the mumps portion of the MMR series. It has also been shown that even when people get a second round of the mumps vaccine, it still has not bolstered their immunity to adequate levels, leaving them venerable to the mumps. There's an idea of trying a third round for this vaccine, but most people are unsure if that will work either. My opponent will not be able to prove that the mumps vaccine is "net beneficial".
Okay, as for adults it really is up to them whether they want to get vaccinated or not. As for children it's a different matter. As adults we have a duty of care to protect the children; the future generations. And if not being vaccinated means that the child's life is more likely to be in grave jeopardy then children should be vaccinated. If the risks of not getting vaccinated outweigh the benefits of getting vaccinated then I think it should be mandatory at least in the case of protecting children. To do the opposite would be a case of negligence which is also considered a case of child abuse. Children don't necessarily have to get vaccinated at school though but they should get vaccinated against some of the most harmful and common illnesses.
In the case of vaccinations the medical history and the medical consensus this is one of the largest this world has ever seen that it would be perverse to deny that this is the case.
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Does it apply to everything? For example, parents have the option to go deep in debt in order to pay for sending their kid to an elite private school. Should every parent that does not make this choice be considered a child abuser? After all, they do put their child's life in jeopardy this way, compared to the alternative.
The risk of any harmful consequences as a result of refraining from getting vaccinated is minuscule. We might as well imprison every parent who crosses a public road with their children as abuser, as the kid is more likely to die to a red light runner, than to an illness that a vaccination can prevent.
The notion that benefits outweighing the risks should make something by default mandatory is so awful, I will not even comment on it. It is something from the depths of the North Korean regime.
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Does it apply to everything? For example, parents have the option to go deep in debt in order to pay for sending their kid to an elite private school. Should every parent that does not make this choice be considered a child abuser? After all, they do put their child's life in jeopardy this way, compared to the alternative.
Sorry @MayCaesar but at this point as I spotted a weak analogy. The reason it's a weak one is due to the huge dissimilarity between private schools and vaccines. Vaccines saves lives; elite private schools don't.
Vaccines have a very-very low probability of saving life of a given recipient; same goes for private schools. The effects of going through a bad public school, in conjunction with a number of other related effects, can be sufficient for the person to seriously considering committing suicide at some point. I would even venture to assume that more people die to suicides due to being in a bad place in life, resulting from poor educational and family background, than those who die due to missing a vaccination - but I do not have any hard statistics to back this assertion up.
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Vaccines have a very-very low probability of saving life of a given recipient; same goes for private schools.
I am afraid that is factually incorrect. And/or your being somewhat ambiguous with what you mean here. The truth is however, that since several vaccinations have been done almost all serious diseases are now almost unheard of. Almost no one gets Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Meningitis and several other diseases let alone actually dying from them nowadays thanks to vaccinations.
The effects of going through a bad public school, in conjunction with a
number of other related effects, can be sufficient for the person to
seriously considering committing suicide at some point. I would even
venture to assume that more people die to suicides due to being in a bad
place in life, resulting from poor educational and family background,
than those who die due to missing a vaccination - but I do not have any
hard statistics to back this assertion up.
This is a good point. But the fact that other bad things can happen does not justify why we should not do good things to prevent other bad things from happening.
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This is a strange claim, given how, for example, WHO estimates that nearly 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis nowadays, with two people dying to it every minute. Vaccines decrease the likelihood of getting tuberculosis, but do not eliminate the possibility of getting it. Given that those vaccines can be received at any stage of human life, and people usually get tuberculosis developed to a dangerous degree quite far into their lives, it does not seem that vaccinating children is going to have a noticeable effect.
How is fining/jailing people for not doing good things a good thing though? I am all for people giving their children vaccines and high-quality private education; that does not mean the government should punish them for not doing so. When you are talking about doing good things, be careful not to confuse good things with bad things masking as good things.
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@MayCaesar can you please pass me a link to where you saw it states that more than 2 billion people are getting infected and dying of tuberculosis every two minutes? I would like to evaluate that data.
A tuberculosis vaccination can greatly reduce the risk of getting the worst forms of tuberculosis when they are administered to a baby. Vaccinations are inoculations. They are a weak form of the disease that the human body can easily fight off which in turn gives your body an immunity to the disease so when you come across the deadly form of the disease you are immune to it.
Nobody on this thread has brought up the possibility of jailing someone for not being vaccinated except yourself. Not even anybody in the medical community is proposing that. But now that you've opened that door, lets consider the following scenario. If someone is bit by a bat and they go to the hospital, they are told they must take a rabies vaccination. They can decline, but they are then locked in a room for 7 days and it is guarded because the threat of that disease is immense and it can be transmitted from person to person. Obviously this is an extreme example, but if a person is suspected of having a dangerous disease that is communicable and fatal, I fail to see the problem with isolating them even without their permission.
As far as a bad thing being masked as a good thing, it's a pretty difficult slope to traverse to convince me vaccinations are a bad thing. It's also difficult for me to understand making them mandatory for children or adults who attend school, and barring them from school if they don't comply. Not everyone can receive a vaccination because of health risks, and so anybody else who doesn't receive a vaccination is a potential health risk to those who cannot get one.
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Jailing is what it comes down to. If vaccinations are mandatory, then parents are penalised for not vaccinating themselves or their children, and if they systematically refuse to pay the penalty, then ultimately they are going to be sent to jail. Your scenario does not change my position.
I am not saying that vaccinations are a bad thing; I am saying that mandatory vaccinations are a bad thing.
An interesting piece you say at the start .... A vaccination mandate has never been tried before,.....Mostly you’re right but it was tried in Great Britain from the 1850’s onwards.
Thank you for your thoughts but if parents wish to not vaccinate their children they should have absolutely no right to let their children attend school or mix with others until they’re clear of any infection. I don’t like government interference but in this case the government interference is well intentioned and is there to protect society in general
Evidence of vaccination’s effectiveness is resounding. Government agency Public Health England estimates that the measles vaccine, first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1968 and combined with mumps and rubella vaccines in 1988, has prevented 20 million cases of measles and saved 4,500 lives. Widely used vaccines have excellent safety records. In terms of improving public health, vaccination is second only to providing clean drinking water
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4,500 lives saved across 30 years is 150 lives per year, which is a negligible fraction of the UK population. Over the same period, for various reasons, life expectancy in the UK has increased by over 5 years, which effectively saved millions lives, in comparison.
That said, it is not the effectiveness of vaccines I am objecting to. It is the notion that effectiveness of vaccines supports the notion that they should be mandatory. There are things that can have a much more profound positive impact on one's life than vaccines, yet nobody asks for them to be mandatory. People are very inconsistent here.
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***** There are things that can have a much more profound positive impact on one's life than vaccines, yet nobody asks for them to be mandatory. People are very inconsistent here.
Why would people object to vaccination for a start ? Why would one not want to voluntarily not want to protect their children from disease? If the government was paying for such whats the big deal?
If people don’t wish to vaccinate keep the fine keep the kids at home which by law you have to anyway and let them take the consequences
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Well, first, it is not the government paying for it; it is people subsidising it with taxes. Second, I personally have mostly ignored vaccinations offered for free, because I have a very high immunity and am safe anyway. And third, I have a phobia of needles.
Regardless, whether people's reasons are valid or not, forcing them to go through it is still wrong in my book. In my eyes, forcing someone to go through vaccination is functionally the same as forcing someone to give birth if they are pregnant: it is a violation of their bodily autonomy. And I do not buy the argument in favor of "public good": I do not care much about the public good if it comes at the expense of individual rights.
Obviously all these opinions are highly subjective, and I am just giving my take on the matter, by no means implying that my position is objectively right.
Evidence of vaccination’s effectiveness is resounding. Government agency Public Health England estimates that the measles vaccine, first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1968 and combined with mumps and rubella vaccines in 1988, has prevented 20 million cases of measles and saved 4,500 lives. Widely used vaccines have excellent safety records. In terms of improving public health, vaccination is second only to providing clean drinking water
@Dee As I said the medical history and consensus surrounding the success of vaccinations is one of largest this word has ever seen that it would be perverse to deny their effectiveness, safety, and necessity.
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@MayCaesar Fair enough. And thank you for the link. Anyway, my claim that you considered to be a strange one was this:
"I am afraid that is factually incorrect. And/or your being somewhat
ambiguous with what you mean here. The truth is however, that since
several vaccinations have been done almost all serious diseases are now
almost unheard of. Almost no one gets Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Meningitis
and several other diseases let alone actually dying from them nowadays
thanks to vaccinations."
Now lets compare this with what the WHO actually says in that link.
Key facts
A total of 1.5 million people died from TB in
2018 (including 251 000 people with HIV). Worldwide, TB is one of the
top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious
agent (above HIV/AIDS).
In 2018, an estimated 10 million people fell ill
with tuberculosis(TB) worldwide. 5.7 million men, 3.2 million women and
1.1 million children. There were cases in all countries and age groups.
But TB is curable and preventable.
In 2018, 1.1 million children fell ill with TB
globally, and there were 205 000 child deaths due to TB (including among
children with HIV). Child and adolescent TB is often overlooked by
health providers and can be difficult to diagnose and treat.
In 2018, the 30 high TB burden countries
accounted for 87% of new TB cases. Eight countries account for two
thirds of the total, with India leading the count, followed by, China,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South
Africa.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public
health crisis and a health security threat. WHO estimates that there
were 484 000 new cases with resistance to rifampicin – the most
effective first-line drug, of which 78% had MDR-TB.,
Globally, TB incidence is falling at about 2%
per year. This needs to accelerate to a 4–5% annual decline to reach the
2020 milestones of the End TB Strategy.
An estimated 58 million lives were saved through TB diagnosis and treatment between 2000 and 2018.
Ending the TB epidemic by 2030 is among the health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Who is most at risk?
Tuberculosis
mostly affects adults in their most productive years. However, all age
groups are at risk. Over 95% of cases and deaths are in developing
countries.
People who are infected with HIV are 19 times more
likely to develop active TB (see TB and HIV section below). The risk of
active TB is also greater in persons suffering from other conditions
that impair the immune system. People with undernutrition are 3 times
more at risk. There were globally 2.3 million new TB cases in 2018 that
were attributable to undernutrition.
1.1 million children (0–14
years of age) fell ill with TB, and 230 000 children (including children
with HIV associated TB) died from the disease in 2018.
The above is basically an excerpt from that WHO link but I couldn't find anything within it that stated anything about vaccines and them having a low probability of saving lives. It talks a lot about people in developing countries and people with underlying health conditions.
Moreover, I did find other current data on TB that does also mention vaccinations:
How effective is BCG vaccination?
The BCG vaccine is made from a weakened strain of TB bacteria.
Because the bacteria in the vaccine is weak, it triggers the immune
system to protect against the disease.
This gives good immunity to people who receive it without actually causing the disease.The vaccine is 70 to 80% effective against the most severe forms of TB, such as TB meningitis in children. It's less effective in preventing respiratory disease, which is the more common form of TB in adults.Read the patient information leaflet for BCG AJV vaccine (PDF, 272kb)
Read the answers to common questions about the BCG TB vaccine https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/bcg-tuberculosis-tb-vaccine/
New data published by Public Health England (PHE) reveal that the number of people in England diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) is at its lowest level since 1990, raising the hope that it will soon be consigned to the history books.
I could go on and on but I think I will leave it there for now.
Nonetheless, I have to admit that I do see how my claim "Almost no one gets Tuberculosis" may have come across as rather ambiguous. And so I am going to evaluate that too:
ZeusAres42 said:
The truth is however, that since
several vaccinations have been done almost all serious diseases are now
almost unheard of. Almost no one gets Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Meningitis
and several other diseases let alone actually dying from them nowadays
thanks to vaccinations."
The first problem with this claim I made is that I have mistaken causation with correlation. Just because infectious diseases are declining does not necessarily mean has anything to do with getting vaccinations; there are other plausible possibilities. "The risk factors for tuberculosis – a bacterial infection that primarily
affects the lungs and causes persistent cough, fever and weight loss –
include homelessness, poor quality housing, alcohol and substance
misuse" (Dr Sarah Anderson, Head of TB Strategy at Public Health England, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tuberculosis-rates-in-england-hit-lowest-recorded-levels).
However, it appears you are taking issue with the fact that I said "almost no one gets TB" as if I said no one get TB anymore and as if that is the only thing I said. Of course, people still get TB including ones that are even vaccinated. However, the groups that are vaccinated are much less likely to get it severely and die from it.
Vaccination for TB
The BCG vaccine offers protection
against TB, and is recommended on the NHS for babies, children and
adults under the age of 35 who are considered to be at risk of catching
TB.
The BCG vaccine is not routinely given to anyone over the age of 35
as there's no evidence that it works for people in this age group.
At-risk groups include:
children living in areas with high rates of TB people with close family members from countries with high TB rates people going to live and work with local people for more than 3 months in an area with high rates of TB
If you're a healthcare worker or NHS employee and you come into
contact with patients or clinical specimens, you should also have a TB
vaccination, irrespective of age, if:
you have not been previously vaccinated (you do not have a BCG scar or the relevant documentation), and the results of a Mantoux skin test or a TB interferon gamma release assay (IGRA) blood test are negative
Read more about who should have the BCG vaccine https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tuberculosis-tb/
How is fining/jailing people for not doing good things a good thing though? I am all for people giving their children vaccines and high-quality private education; that does not mean the government should punish them for not doing so. When you are talking about doing good things, be careful not to confuse good things with bad things masking as good things.
@MayCaesar I have never said that people should be jailed or fined for not doing good things. The actual thing that was said was this:
The effects of going through a bad public school, in conjunction with a
number of other related effects, can be sufficient for the person to
seriously considering committing suicide at some point. I would even
venture to assume that more people die to suicides due to being in a bad
place in life, resulting from poor educational and family background,
than those who die due to missing a vaccination - but I do not have any
hard statistics to back this assertion up.
This is a good
point. But the fact that other bad things can happen does not justify
why we should not do good things to prevent other bad things from
happening.
Also, I do not consider saving lives a bad thing being masked as a good thing.However, I think what you meant was that you consider the government forcing things to do things might be a bad thing.
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I have noticed that you may have mentioned something about vaccinations causing complications for some people with certain medical conditions and therefore it would not be the right thing to do. However, the way I see it is that mandatory does not mean mandatory regardless. People with medical conditions will be medically exempt and this should ideally be put into legislation.
An interesting piece you say at the start .... A vaccination mandate has never been tried before,.....Mostly you’re right but it was tried in Great Britain from the 1850’s onwards.
Thank you for your thoughts but if parents wish to not vaccinate their children they should have absolutely no right to let their children attend school or mix with others until they’re clear of any infection. I don’t like government interference but in this case the government interference is well intentioned and is there to protect society in general
I fully agree that children and adults who attend school should be vaccinated to be able to attend. But that's not a proper mandate, because we are technically not mandated to attend public schools. We can choose homeschooling. I am against making vaccinations mandatory for everyone regardless of whether they attend school. Most people in the medical community believe the only valid exemptions for vaccinations are for health reasons, but religious and philosophical exemptions are invalid as far as they're concerned. The medical community is proposing that every single able bodied person should be vaccinated regardless of whether they attend school or not.
I have noticed that you may have mentioned something about vaccinations causing complications for some people with certain medical conditions and therefore it would not be the right thing to do. However, the way I see it is that mandatory does not mean mandatory regardless. People with medical conditions will be medically exempt and this should ideally be put into legislation.
Nobody in the medical community wants to force vaccinations on people who may be at risk if they receive one. My real gripe with a mandate for every able bodied person is the fact that the medical community doesn't have a comprehensive public awareness program to properly educate the public about the risks of diseases, and the benefits of vaccinations, yet they want to force vaccinations on people who aren't properly educated on the issue, whether they attend school or not. I think the evidence is clear that a well informed public can and will willingly choose to be vaccinated without the need for a mandate, and we can still achieve herd immunity that way. Saudi Arabia has achieved herd immunity without a mandate.
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No adult in the US can be jailed for refusing to vaccinating themselves, and the only real punishment people will face for not vaccinating their children who attend public school is a fine, or in the most extreme cases, their children are barred from attending school. Jail is not really an option in this case. Claiming that parents are being jailed for refusing to vaccinate their children is a blatant misrepresentation.
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I understand your stance on the statistical matters; let us not debate these fine details.
Regarding the bad/good thing, there is a difference between saving lives by using your own means, and saving lives at the expense of other people's freedoms. The latter is not necessarily a good thing, and, as I explained in the jail argument, can actually be a bad thing.
Again, no. Nobody is jailed even if they never get their children vaccinated. The reason the children are barred from attending school is because they become a dangerous health risk to the other children. It's a requirement for them to attend, so if they don't get vaccinations, they are barred.
I do not think you understand my argument. What happens if I am fined for not getting my children vaccinated and refuse to pay the fine, ever? A warrant for arrest will be issued eventually, and if I, again, refuse the financial deal the court offers, then I will be sent in jail. It always comes down to sending people to jail or killing them. These are the actual tools the government uses to enforce the law; without these, anyone can do whatever they want, refuse to pay any fines or taxes, etc., with no repercussions.
Wait, why are they a dangerous health risk to the other children, if those children have been vaccinated?
I understand your stance on the statistical matters; let us not debate these fine details.
Regarding the bad/good thing, there is a difference between saving lives by using your own means, and saving lives at the expense of other people's freedoms. The latter is not necessarily a good thing, and, as I explained in the jail argument, can actually be a bad thing.
@MayCaesar please, please do not put words in my mouth. I have never made a case regarding doing something in favor of some others' rights/freedoms at the expense of other's freedoms/rights. In fact, I have often and consistently argued against this. Hence why I wrote the following in another thread (posting a little bit extra here:
Defenders of free speech almost without exception recognize the need for some
limits to the freedom they advocate. In other words, liberty should not
be confused with licence. Complete freedom of speech would permit
freedom to slander, freedom to engage in false and highly misleading
advertising, freedom to publish sexual material about children, freedom
to reveal state secrets, and so on. Alexander Meiklejohn, a thinker who
was particularly concerned to nurture the sorts of debates that are
fruitful for a democracy made this point:
When self-governing men demand freedom of speech they are
not saying that every individual has an unalienable right to speak
whenever, wherever, however he chooses. They do not declare that any man
may talk as he pleases, when he pleases, about what he pleases, about
whom he pleases, to whom he pleases.
This seems to be the case with you; you are conflating freedoms/liberty/rights with license which are completely different things. What I see you currently advocating for here both the right to complete bodily autonomy as well as the complete right for parents to decide what's best for their children. Complete bodily autonomy would imply that people can run naked through children's playgrounds, attempt to blow themselves up whenever and wherever they like, and more. Furthermore, complete parental rights would entail that the parents can beat their kids senseless, deny their kids an education, stave their kids, sexually abuse them, and much more.
I am very much for rights/freedoms/liberty. What I am not for is complete chaos and anarchy.
Bodily autonomy merely means that you are a sole owner of your body, and this ownership is not to be infringed on by others for as long as you do not infringe on the others' body ownership. This is the basic principle of rights: you can exercise your right in any way that does not violate other people's rights. You cannot blow yourself up on the street according to this principle, if there is a good chance that doing so will damage the bodies of others - but you can run naked through children's playgrounds, for example, and there is nothing wrong with it. It is not like children have never seen naked bodies and will faint from the sight.
You cannot have rights/freedoms/liberty without chaos. They come in one package. If you choose control and security, then you lose rights, freedoms and liberty. If you choose rights, freedoms and liberty, then you lose control and security. There are some rights, freedoms and liberties I am wiling to compromise on; bodily autonomy is not one of them. It is hard to think of anything more fundamental in terms of human rights than the notion that your body is your sole property. If that does not hold, then nothing does.
Full ownership of your body does not mean that you can use it in any way imaginable, but it does mean that nobody can decide for you how to treat this body. And that means that nobody can make a decision on whether to get vaccinated or not - much like, when you own a car, you are the only person who can decide whether to modify the engine or not.
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@MayCaesar most of what you said par last part of your post is really no different to what I said to you but with different wording.
However, I do see a contradiction in your argument at the end. I mean one minute your agreeing with me that bodily autonomy should be be allowed as as long as it's not infringing others rights. And then you are saying you are advocating for total bodily autonomy which obviously implies at the expense of others.
I'm afraid you can't have it both ways.
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I do not think you understand my argument. What happens if I am fined for not getting my children vaccinated and refuse to pay the fine, ever? A warrant for arrest will be issued eventually, and if I, again, refuse the financial deal the court offers, then I will be sent in jail. It always comes down to sending people to jail or killing them. These are the actual tools the government uses to enforce the law; without these, anyone can do whatever they want, refuse to pay any fines or taxes, etc., with no repercussions.
Wait, why are they a dangerous health risk to the other children, if those children have been vaccinated?
Bodily autonomy merely means that you are a sole owner of your body, and this ownership is not to be infringed on by others for as long as you do not infringe on the others' body ownership.
Not everybody has a healthy enough immune system to be able to get vaccinated. Those with compromised immune systems would be put a severe risk if they received a vaccination. Children who aren't vaccinated because their parents refused to, but they are otherwise healthy enough to receive them, they become a dangerous health risk to those who cannot receive a vaccination because of health risks. The only way the population of a school can achieve herd immunity is by making sure all able bodied children and adults who work at or attend at the school be vaccinated. If there is no way to ensure herd immunity is possible, then those able bodied people who haven't received a vaccination need to be disallowed to attend school. If you become a health risk to the public at large, then you are infringing on the autonomy of others. So the argument that vaccinations cannot be forced on people because it violates the rights to their own body doesn't fly against the fact that you are a health risk to the public for not being vaccinated.
Aside from a few cases of judges trying to make an example of a parent who hasn't vaccinated their children and putting them in prison, the harshest punishment most people will face is having their children taken out of school, or adults are disallowed to attend school. Parents across the US are refusing to vaccinate their children, but they're not being jailed because of it. In most cases, they're ignored, and nothing ever comes of not vaccinating.
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____________________
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I'm surprised by how many people on here actually believe vaccinations should be mandatory. I guess the anti-vaxxers are underrepresented on this site.
Debra AI Prediction
Post Argument Now Debate Details +
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I don't think the medical community pushes for mandatory vaccinations for diseases that are eradicated.
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People who are afraid of something can get vaccinated, and the fact that others are not vaccinated will not affect them in any way. Others can play a dice. Everybody wins, except for authoritarians who always want to control how others live their lives.
Humanity has existed without vaccinations for dozens thousands years and was doing just fine. The notion that, just because vaccinations nowadays are easily available and safe, they should be mandated, is ridiculous and runs contrary to the most basic notions of freedom. It is a nod to the darker times, when church ran everything and told people how they should live their lives.
Anti-abortion stances, anti-organ trade stances, anti-euthanasia stances, etc. belong to the same category. They all rest on the assumption that a person's body is not their sole property, and that is a scary notion indeed.
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No in fairness I wouldn’t think you ignorant. I should have said the majority of cases are based on ignorance so apologies no offence intended to you.
What are your objections grounded in?
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No worries, no offence was taken. I pasted and copied a debate I had on DebateArt regarding this matter. I went against Whiteflame, so obviously I lost, but I still think my argument is solid. My opponent was trying to prove that our government and medical community has a responsibility to implement policies that are "net beneficial" for all of society.
-------------My argument from Dart.------------
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Does it apply to everything? For example, parents have the option to go deep in debt in order to pay for sending their kid to an elite private school. Should every parent that does not make this choice be considered a child abuser? After all, they do put their child's life in jeopardy this way, compared to the alternative.
The risk of any harmful consequences as a result of refraining from getting vaccinated is minuscule. We might as well imprison every parent who crosses a public road with their children as abuser, as the kid is more likely to die to a red light runner, than to an illness that a vaccination can prevent.
The notion that benefits outweighing the risks should make something by default mandatory is so awful, I will not even comment on it. It is something from the depths of the North Korean regime.
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Sorry @MayCaesar but at this point as I spotted a weak analogy. The reason it's a weak one is due to the huge dissimilarity between private schools and vaccines. Vaccines saves lives; elite private schools don't.
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Vaccines have a very-very low probability of saving life of a given recipient; same goes for private schools. The effects of going through a bad public school, in conjunction with a number of other related effects, can be sufficient for the person to seriously considering committing suicide at some point. I would even venture to assume that more people die to suicides due to being in a bad place in life, resulting from poor educational and family background, than those who die due to missing a vaccination - but I do not have any hard statistics to back this assertion up.
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This is a strange claim, given how, for example, WHO estimates that nearly 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis nowadays, with two people dying to it every minute. Vaccines decrease the likelihood of getting tuberculosis, but do not eliminate the possibility of getting it. Given that those vaccines can be received at any stage of human life, and people usually get tuberculosis developed to a dangerous degree quite far into their lives, it does not seem that vaccinating children is going to have a noticeable effect.
How is fining/jailing people for not doing good things a good thing though? I am all for people giving their children vaccines and high-quality private education; that does not mean the government should punish them for not doing so.
When you are talking about doing good things, be careful not to confuse good things with bad things masking as good things.
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@MayCaesar can you please pass me a link to where you saw it states that more than 2 billion people are getting infected and dying of tuberculosis every two minutes? I would like to evaluate that data.
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A tuberculosis vaccination can greatly reduce the risk of getting the worst forms of tuberculosis when they are administered to a baby. Vaccinations are inoculations. They are a weak form of the disease that the human body can easily fight off which in turn gives your body an immunity to the disease so when you come across the deadly form of the disease you are immune to it.
Nobody on this thread has brought up the possibility of jailing someone for not being vaccinated except yourself. Not even anybody in the medical community is proposing that. But now that you've opened that door, lets consider the following scenario. If someone is bit by a bat and they go to the hospital, they are told they must take a rabies vaccination. They can decline, but they are then locked in a room for 7 days and it is guarded because the threat of that disease is immense and it can be transmitted from person to person. Obviously this is an extreme example, but if a person is suspected of having a dangerous disease that is communicable and fatal, I fail to see the problem with isolating them even without their permission.
As far as a bad thing being masked as a good thing, it's a pretty difficult slope to traverse to convince me vaccinations are a bad thing. It's also difficult for me to understand making them mandatory for children or adults who attend school, and barring them from school if they don't comply. Not everyone can receive a vaccination because of health risks, and so anybody else who doesn't receive a vaccination is a potential health risk to those who cannot get one.
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Take a look at these links:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis
https://www.statista.com/statistics/280015/prevalence-of-tuberculosis-worldwide-by-region/
And no, I did not say that "more than 2 billion people" were getting infected every minute; I said that "nearly 2 billion people" were infected globally, and 2 people were dying to it every minute. You can look at the statistics above and do the calculations yourself.
@piloteer
Jailing is what it comes down to. If vaccinations are mandatory, then parents are penalised for not vaccinating themselves or their children, and if they systematically refuse to pay the penalty, then ultimately they are going to be sent to jail.
Your scenario does not change my position.
I am not saying that vaccinations are a bad thing; I am saying that mandatory vaccinations are a bad thing.
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An interesting piece you say at the start .... A vaccination mandate has never been tried before,.....Mostly you’re right but it was tried in Great Britain from the 1850’s onwards.
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Evidence of vaccination’s effectiveness is resounding. Government agency Public Health England estimates that the measles vaccine, first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1968 and combined with mumps and rubella vaccines in 1988, has prevented 20 million cases of measles and saved 4,500 lives. Widely used vaccines have excellent safety records. In terms of improving public health, vaccination is second only to providing clean drinking water
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4,500 lives saved across 30 years is 150 lives per year, which is a negligible fraction of the UK population. Over the same period, for various reasons, life expectancy in the UK has increased by over 5 years, which effectively saved millions lives, in comparison.
That said, it is not the effectiveness of vaccines I am objecting to. It is the notion that effectiveness of vaccines supports the notion that they should be mandatory. There are things that can have a much more profound positive impact on one's life than vaccines, yet nobody asks for them to be mandatory. People are very inconsistent here.
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Why would people object to vaccination for a start ? Why would one not want to voluntarily not want to protect their children from disease? If the government was paying for such whats the big deal?
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Well, first, it is not the government paying for it; it is people subsidising it with taxes. Second, I personally have mostly ignored vaccinations offered for free, because I have a very high immunity and am safe anyway. And third, I have a phobia of needles.
Regardless, whether people's reasons are valid or not, forcing them to go through it is still wrong in my book. In my eyes, forcing someone to go through vaccination is functionally the same as forcing someone to give birth if they are pregnant: it is a violation of their bodily autonomy. And I do not buy the argument in favor of "public good": I do not care much about the public good if it comes at the expense of individual rights.
Obviously all these opinions are highly subjective, and I am just giving my take on the matter, by no means implying that my position is objectively right.
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You’re entitled to your opinion and thank you for sharing your thoughts
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No adult in the US can be jailed for refusing to vaccinating themselves, and the only real punishment people will face for not vaccinating their children who attend public school is a fine, or in the most extreme cases, their children are barred from attending school. Jail is not really an option in this case. Claiming that parents are being jailed for refusing to vaccinate their children is a blatant misrepresentation.
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I understand your stance on the statistical matters; let us not debate these fine details.
Regarding the bad/good thing, there is a difference between saving lives by using your own means, and saving lives at the expense of other people's freedoms. The latter is not necessarily a good thing, and, as I explained in the jail argument, can actually be a bad thing.
@piloteer
And what happens if they refuse to pay the fine? The ultimate outcome is jail, there is no way around that.
As for barring children from attending school, this penalty does not even make sense. Why should children be punished for their parents' choices?
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Again, no. Nobody is jailed even if they never get their children vaccinated. The reason the children are barred from attending school is because they become a dangerous health risk to the other children. It's a requirement for them to attend, so if they don't get vaccinations, they are barred.
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I do not think you understand my argument. What happens if I am fined for not getting my children vaccinated and refuse to pay the fine, ever? A warrant for arrest will be issued eventually, and if I, again, refuse the financial deal the court offers, then I will be sent in jail.
It always comes down to sending people to jail or killing them. These are the actual tools the government uses to enforce the law; without these, anyone can do whatever they want, refuse to pay any fines or taxes, etc., with no repercussions.
Wait, why are they a dangerous health risk to the other children, if those children have been vaccinated?
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: Complete freedom of speech    Complete bodily autonomy   good thing   bodily autonomy  
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Bodily autonomy merely means that you are a sole owner of your body, and this ownership is not to be infringed on by others for as long as you do not infringe on the others' body ownership. This is the basic principle of rights: you can exercise your right in any way that does not violate other people's rights.
You cannot blow yourself up on the street according to this principle, if there is a good chance that doing so will damage the bodies of others - but you can run naked through children's playgrounds, for example, and there is nothing wrong with it. It is not like children have never seen naked bodies and will faint from the sight.
You cannot have rights/freedoms/liberty without chaos. They come in one package. If you choose control and security, then you lose rights, freedoms and liberty. If you choose rights, freedoms and liberty, then you lose control and security.
There are some rights, freedoms and liberties I am wiling to compromise on; bodily autonomy is not one of them. It is hard to think of anything more fundamental in terms of human rights than the notion that your body is your sole property. If that does not hold, then nothing does.
Full ownership of your body does not mean that you can use it in any way imaginable, but it does mean that nobody can decide for you how to treat this body. And that means that nobody can make a decision on whether to get vaccinated or not - much like, when you own a car, you are the only person who can decide whether to modify the engine or not.
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However, I do see a contradiction in your argument at the end. I mean one minute your agreeing with me that bodily autonomy should be be allowed as as long as it's not infringing others rights. And then you are saying you are advocating for total bodily autonomy which obviously implies at the expense of others.
I'm afraid you can't have it both ways.
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Aside from a few cases of judges trying to make an example of a parent who hasn't vaccinated their children and putting them in prison, the harshest punishment most people will face is having their children taken out of school, or adults are disallowed to attend school. Parents across the US are refusing to vaccinate their children, but they're not being jailed because of it. In most cases, they're ignored, and nothing ever comes of not vaccinating.
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