"Sick Privilege

[DC Al Fine]

I'm loathe to take a child away from their parents unless the situation is very, very dire. Failure to vaccinate doesn't come close to meeting that standard.

Let's look at the negative effects of non-vaccination. As Antonio V noted, not receiving a vaccine has a chance of contracting a disease that has a chance of killing them. Obviously, not preventing these diseases is a dumb decision, but its hardly child abuse, much less a death sentence. Given the hysterics of some on this thread, I wonder how some of my fellow posters feel about parents who own swimming pools.

[DC Al Fine]

Oh come on Snowstalker, this is dumb even by your standards.

honestly i agree with him in this case. refusing to vaccinate your children definitely falls under the umbrella of child abuse.

Look, I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but it's not like every child who doesn't get vaccinated is going to catch smallpox and die. As long as it's only 2-5% of the population that asks for exemption, it's really a non-issue and certainly doesn't warrant this hyperbolic language.

The issue is also that anti-vaxxers tend to be a certain demographic profile (white granola liberals mostly) and those people tend to congregate in the same sorts of places. Which means that that 2-5% is concentrated.

Why do you assume that most anti-vaxxers are liberals?

See above map. The highest concentrations of anti-vacxxers are in Vermont and Oregon.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm loathe to take a child away from their parents unless the situation is very, very dire. Failure to vaccinate doesn't come close to meeting that standard.

Let's look at the negative effects of non-vaccination. As Antonio V noted, not receiving a vaccine has a chance of contracting a disease that has a chance of killing them. Obviously, not preventing these diseases is a dumb decision, but its hardly child abuse, much less a death sentence. Given the hysterics of some on this thread, I wonder how some of my fellow posters feel about parents who own swimming pools.

Nothing wrong with owning a swimming pool.

There is something very wrong with owning a swimming pool and deliberately not teaching your child how to swim, which is more analogous to this situation.

You're missing the point.

Both anti-vaccination and not teaching your child to swim (when you live near a body of water) are dumb parenting moves.

Neither act merits your hysterics. Neither act merits taking children away from their parents as others suggest.

[DC Al Fine]

Children don't necessarily need to be taken away, but they do need to be vaccinated no matter what they're parents think. In the mean time if their child dies or they infect someone else and they die they should then have their kids taken away and be prosecuted for murder.

How on earth does that logic work?

Not vaccinating against say measles, is taking a chance that a child will contract a disease that has a chance of killing them. Is it a dumb thing to do? Yes. Is it tragic when the ? Yes. Does it come remotely close to what the legal system defines murder as? No!

We don't even charge drunk drivers who kill people with murder. They get manslaughter, and they take a heck of a lot more risk than an anti-vaxxer does.