Whose nose? Whose fist? Whose freedom?
Isn’t it about time we stop making children pay the price for their parents' imagined “freedom?”
They’re right. Freedom isn’t free.
It’s cost one kid’s life already.
Dead from measles.
At last count, in nine Texas counties and two in New Mexico, 124 more are sick; 18 in the hospital. Almost all are kids. Almost none are vaccinated.
There’s no excuse for that. A measles vaccine – nearly 100 percent effective – has been available since 1963. No kid – particularly no American kid – should ever come down with the measles.
I wasn’t so lucky. When I was a kid, every two or three years measles would “go through” the community and whoever hadn’t had ‘em was likely to get ‘em. As best I can remember, my turn came when I was eight or nine. “The bug,” as Mom would say, was “going around” and on a Saturday morning, after the cartoons were over and I was about to head out to see what Mickey and the other neighbor kids were up to, Mom spotted a suspicious-looking line of red spots sprouting along my buzz-cut scalp. My afternoon plans were scotched and it wasn’t long before my feel-bad started to hurt and that was that. I spent a miserable week or so sprawled on the sofa, followed up by the unwelcome stack of make-up worksheets stacked on by desk at school. I was lucky and came out of it none the worse for wear, but a couple of kids who came back to school were never the same kids who went home sick.
And getting the measles wasn’t the only viral rite of passage to plague my generation’s childhood – we had mumps, German measles, and chicken pox to contend with as well. I learned I was relatively fortunate, though…that round nubbly scar on my bicep protected me from smallpox; I could vaguely remember being hauled into the doctor to get one of the first rounds of polio vaccine available in the county, and well before I could toddle, Mom saw to it I’d gotten the shots that were keeping me safe from diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough – any and all of which, had I caught them, could have put an end to my life before it really had much chance to get started.
As it was, I had to get my immunity to measles the hard way. Then … and now … I’d gladly have traded those days of aspirin and chicken soup for a couple shots in the arm.
I’m guessing those kids in Texas are feeling the same way.
Kids are sick. A kid is dead. Because, for whatever reason, they weren’t given the shot in the arm that would have kept them healthy. And listen to the politicians, pundits, and preachers insist it’s a parent’s right not to allow their children to be vaccinated; that compulsory childhood vaccination is a dastardly infringement upon their freedom.
Freedom.
I doubt if there’s a more abused word in our political lexicon. As a kid, it was made clear to me that freedom meant I had the right to do as I wished, so long as it wasn’t going to hurt anybody, cheat anybody, or make anybody’s life miserable – and that “anybody” included me.
And if freedom is abused, “rights” isn’t far behind. I learned early we all have rights, but this corollary was also pressed upon me – Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Sick and dead kids – is that the price of freedom? It is as long as we allow that freedom depends on parents having the right not to get their kids vaccinated.
If the law requires kids to be strapped in car seats six-ways-from-Sunday for a drive around the block, how can the law allow them – any of them -- to be left unprotected from a virus that can kill them?
Isn’t it about time we stop making children pay the price for their parent’s imagined “freedom?”
Whose nose? Whose fist? Whose freedom?
Jerome is right.
Jerry, I don't know what you are talking about with blacks and Indians and operations & shots.
Since you didn't specify, I think that point is irrelevant.
Vaccines are for youngsters and also anyone older, to ward off the diseases that we are trying so hard to make a thing of the past... smallpox, chicken pox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, shingles, pneumonia, etc. They protect the individual AND the general population. Most of these diseases are highly contagious.
Parents subscribing to ignorant religious practices or plain old ignorant beliefs should be re-educated about these horrible diseases and how vaccines work. One parent refusing to participate in vaccination programs could be singularly responsible for spreading the infection to an entire class at school, or an entire grade school, an entire church congregation, or sports team...in other words, basically anybody and everybody that comes in contact with an infected person... or even through touching, say, a handrail or doorknob touched by an infected person. It's like wildfire. It spreads.
No parent should be allowed to physically harm their child, let alone the general population! By not "believing in" vaccines being essential for public health, such parents are committing dangrous acts of cruelty and possible deaths. Their stupidity is unbelievably harmful to all of us.
Note: I purposely do not include Covid vaccines in this discussion because there is evidence that Big Pharma, Fauci, labs, governments, and universities like Harvard are all proving to be liars on the subject from the get-go. Unfortunately, the situation is reinforcing the beliefs of those who are against vaccinations in general.
Yeah, I don't know, Jerome. I agree that no kid in America should be exposed to the threat of a potentially deadly or debilitating illness. But all of the anti-vaxxers I know genuinely believe that vaccines pose a greater risk to their children's health than any benefit that they might provide. They would say they are not exercising their RIGHTS, per se, but their responsibility to ensure the welfare of their children. Which might be easy to dismiss...but...consider communities of color, especially older generations of Blacks and Native Americans, who have more than one example of how the "experts" told them the needle jab or operation was for their own good...but ended up getting screwed over. I would be pretty loathe to force any of those people to undergo any procedure they weren't eminently confident was actually to the benefit of their health.
It's always been a balancing act, of course, and we need to strike a balance, is what it comes down to, and where that line gets drawn and -- more importantly -- how it gets drawn -- is vitally important.