Tag Archives: vaccination

Is My Child Exempt?

Mavis Bliss wrote an article (“Moral Free-Riders” in Sojourners, May 2015) about the temptation to make exceptions for ourselves from moral choices.

What if you fear dangers from the vaccination of your children against childhood diseases and decide not to do it? When too many people decide not to vaccinate their children, the “herd” immunity given to society from a high vaccination rate lowers.

“In a public without herd immunity, the risks posed by disease far exceed the small risks associated with vaccination. In other words, free-riding does not work when everyone is doing it. Herd immunity does not require universal vaccination, but it does require vaccination of a sufficient majority.”

Bliss suggests that the following people should be exempt from vaccination: babies too young to be vaccinated and those with low or compromised immune systems, such as some elderly and cancer patients.

Deciding not to vaccinate a healthy child, Bliss says is a morally risky choice, imperiling the children of one’s neighbors.

Loving my neighbor as myself implies loving my neighbor’s child as I love my own. We seek what is best for us all, not just my child, my family, my community, my nation.

Why I Had My Children Vaccinated

The only available vaccine I remember in my early childhood was against typhoid fever. A great aunt had caught the disease in her teen years and almost died. My mother made sure my brother and I were vaccinated against it.

I contracted whooping cough when I was a few months old. I caught it from my brother who caught it from school classmates. I don’t remember the illness, of course, but my mother certainly did. She remembered listening to the “whoop” of two children struggling to breathe, fearful she would lose them.

I remember the measles I got when I was three or four. Mine was a mild case. My brother’s case was quite serious. He lay for days in a darkened bedroom to avoid harm to his eyes.

When I was about two, my parents cut short our family vacation. I had developed fever and vomiting, and they were terrified that I might have caught polio from an outbreak not far from where we were staying. Fortunately, I did not have polio, and years later, my mother’s voice still reflected relief when she told of that time.

I have vague memories of a funeral for a neighborhood child who died of polio. I remember pictures of children encased in “iron lungs,” the mechanical devices that breathed for them for however long it took to recover chest muscles paralyzed by polio.

When the polio vaccine became available, my mother rushed us to the nearest vaccination center. It came too late for a classmate, who had caught the disease earlier and walked now with a twisted leg.

Of course I brought my children to the doctor for vaccinations against those diseases.  I didn’t want to know the fear my mother knew.