Guest Post by Judge Andrew Napolitano
To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate?
When Christie articulated the pro-balance view, he must have known that New Jersey law, which he enforces, has no balance, shows no deference to parents’ rights and permits exceptions to universal vaccinations only for medical reasons (where a physician certifies that the child will get sicker because of a vaccination) or religious objections. Short of those narrow reasons, in New Jersey, if you don’t vaccinate your children, you risk losing parental custody of them.
The science is overwhelming that vaccinations work for most children most of the time. Paul, who is a physician, said, however, he knew of instances in which poorly timed vaccinations had led to mental disorders. Yet, he was wise enough to make the pro-freedom case, and he made it stronger than Christie did.
To Paul, the issue is not science. That’s because in a free society, we are free to reject scientific orthodoxy and seek unorthodox scientific cures. Of course, we do that at our peril if our rejection of truth and selection of alternatives results in harm to others.
The issue, according to Paul, is: WHO OWNS YOUR BODY? This is a question the government does not want to answer truthfully, because if it does, it will sound like Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel “1984.” That’s because the government believes it owns your body.
Paul and no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected that concept. Under the natural law, because you retain the rights inherent in your birth that you have not individually given away to government, the government does not own your body. Rather, you do. And you alone can decide your fate with respect to the ingestion of medicine. What about children? Paul argues that parents are the natural and legal custodians of their children’s bodies until they reach maturity or majority, somewhere between ages 14 and 18, depending on the state of residence.
What do the states have to do with this? Under our Constitution, the states, and not the federal government, are the guardians of public health. That is an area of governance not delegated by the states to the feds. Of course, you’d never know this to listen to the debate today in which Big Government politicians, confident in the science, want a one-size-fits-all regimen.
No less a champion of government in your face than Hillary Clinton jumped into this debate with a whacky Tweet that argued that because the Earth is round and the sky is blue and science is right, all kids should be vaccinated. What she was really saying is that in her progressive worldview, the coercive power of the federal government can be used to enforce a scientific orthodoxy upon those states and individuals who intellectually reject it.
In America, you are free to reject it.
Clinton and her Big Government colleagues would be wise to look at their favorite Supreme Court decision: Roe v. Wade. Yes, the same Roe v. Wade that 42 years ago unleashed 45 million abortions also defines the right to bear and raise children as fundamental, and thus personal to parents, and thus largely immune from state interference and utterly immune from federal interference.
Paul’s poignant question about who owns your body — and he would be the first to tell you that this is not a federal issue — cannot be ignored by Christie or Clinton or any other presidential candidate. If Paul is right, if we do own our bodies and if we are the custodians of our children’s bodies until they reach maturity, then we have the right to make health care choices free from government interference, even if our choices are grounded in philosophy or religion or emotion or alternative science.
But if Paul is wrong, if the government owns our bodies, then the presumption of individual liberty guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution has been surreptitiously discarded, and there will be no limit to what the government can compel us to do or to what it can extract from us — in the name of science or any other of its modern-day gods.
I own most of my body but, the government owns my ass.
We did not inject our kids. But, we did get some kind of shot for my youngest son AFTER he caught that nasty assed barking cough called croup. They are the picture of good health today.
As I see it, the big controversy concerns AIRBORNE diseases. Sure, I have the right to not get a flu shot. But, what about the rights of the person sharing my air space? Don’t they have the right to not breath in my potentially infected exhales? I think so. One of these persons HAS to give up their rights. Which one?
I’m OK with with TEMPORARILY quarantining folks who refuse to take shots meant to prevent airborne diseases. If a school official had asked us to remove our sons from school until the danger passed, I would have gladly done so.
God owns your ass and soul.Who says so the great… I AM THAT I AM….
The government has used all sorts of scams to take away our rights.
For instance we all have a right to travel where ever we want. I believe driving is a right – when 95% of the people drive then it’s a right. However the gubmint has converted it into a privilege – for the express purpose of taxation and regulation.
Could possibly be that we could be mandated to get Flu shots? One of the biggest scams around.
Dutch….soon enough everyone will be required to get whatever shot the gooberment want us to get. I can guarantee that if Obozocares is around a year from now It’ll be a mandate in order to get healthcare.
Buckhed
You are right about that. Looks to me like cleaver citizens will find ways around those mandated shots. Money talks.
That should read clever citizens.
Our son’s only vaccinations were after his birth in a USAF hospital. They gave him the MMR and polio vaccinations.
I skipped all the well baby checks because, well, he was a well baby.
I sent him to private Christian school until third grade. No vaccination requirements beyond the MMR/polio at birth.
When he started third grade, we moved him to public school. He had to get 5 shots in one visit. I’ll never forget how mad he was… and I’ll never forget that until then, he’d never been sick. He got his first case of the common cold that winter.
Could be coincidence, but I’m thinking not.
How funny, was just reading a pharm-related President Ike story, basically, he did not only warn us against the military industrial complex, he also warned us against the scientific elite industry.
This is what I know, you can STILL get the measles if vaccinated, and as my brother and sister were both vaccinated, and then researched by MSU medical school because their cases were SO severe, you can get a bad case too.
I had my MMR shots, twice. I had the measles, mumps and rubella. Same for chicken pox. I have no antibodies towards chicken pox, and they have been pressuring me to get the MMR again for decades, but since I had the freaking disease, they can kiss my ass.
We are being lied to. If they were as “safe and effective” as touted then there would not be a vaccination court doling out millions and millions and millions of dollars to the harmed families. And there is. CONgress and Reagan also gave them carte blanche liability freedom, just like Monsanto. Again, if so “safe” why the immunity? Those are two opposing views, it is not a logical legal position in my mind. If safe, no need for immunity. If begged, paid and forced immunity, that tells me the corporations KNOW there are problems. Ike warned us of this shit.
And if immunizations were so freaking effective, WHY are the vaccinated getting sick? It makes NO sense.
And sorry, with 1 out of 80 kids being diagnosed as autistic, allergies and asthma at record levels, AND the HIGHEST infant mortality rate in the developed world, FUCK the experts. Not to mention a cancer rate that went from fewer in 1 in 125 to nearly 1 in 3 in barely more than a century.
If you want to believe these greedy, corrupted, lying, murdering, hiding behind political paid for clout, experts and inject toxins into yourself or your kids, go for it.
But to call this a fucking free country and then say you have the right to potentially MURDER my child (as kids DO die from the fucking shots, every year, always have) as opposed to the risk God created, is nothing but taking your final dump on the sovereignty, and free will, of man. And trust me, every disillusioned grieving parent would feel the same way.
Thankfully I know that even if I am eventually murdered for the “health” (what a fucking joke that is) of the herd that God will understand and welcome me. Not so sure about the lying bastards that continue to put us through it.
A CDC “scientist” spilled the beans recently when it was stated that vaccines were administered to infants, even when vaccination immunity against diseases was ineffective in infants, in order to get parents “used to” taking their children to medical professionals for vaccinations. This, in itself constitutes medical malpractice of the worst kind…
The CDC and so-called “medical professionals” think that parents are stupid, when parents recognize a change in behavior and demeanor in their children after having vaccines administered. They automatically dismiss negative side effects, often claiming that parents are “making things up”… and that the “changes” in a child’s behavior are “imagined”.
The “problem” may not be the vaccines themselves, but in the way they are administered…multiple vaccines administered at one time (for the convenience of medical professionals) tend to overload a child’s little body with triggers to the immune system that cannot handle the amount and types of vaccines given at one time.
It might only take “spacing out” the administration of vaccines to help reduce the negative side effects of vaccinations.
It is long overdue for the medical profession and the pharmaceutical profession to tell the TRUTH about vaccines…
You can do anything you want as long as the government says you can. Then your ass belongs to them
I trust the government. They wouldn’t lie to us.
In order for humans to continue living beyond our means in large groups, vaccinations are essential for some of the more lethal diseases. As long as living within our means is not on the agenda the need will remain. Who knows, maybe death by preventable disease is better than mass starvation or war over shrinking resources?