Why Texas is becoming a major antivaccine battlefield

[jllundqu]

At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment? One parent thinks vaccines are dangerous and is willing to run the risk that the child comes down with measles, whooping cough, or some other disease. Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort]. Another believes that it's perfectly OK to discipline a child by whipping its butt raw, chaining it to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week. How far does this go?

I didn't eat my vegetables last night and I also cut my workout 15 minutes short because I was tired.... There should be a law against that, right?

[jllundqu]

Not really. It's a matter of degree, not of kind. It's one thing to say that a kid has allergies to a vaccine. It's quite another to base an objection on the unverified claims of a quack or some other crackpot notion. Yes, there's a difference between (a) refusing to let a child be vaxxed and running the risk he'll get measles or whooping cough, and (b) refusing conventional medical treatment for a child with treatable cancer and relying instead on prayer or voodoo rites (I am not equating these two alternative treatments, btw). Maybe the unvaxxed kid won't get measles or if he does, maybe he won't infect anyone else. Maybe the kid with cancer will undergo spontaneous remission, even though every doctor who's seen him says he'll die without conventional treatment. My only point is that parents shouldn't have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want to regarding their kids, and I'd be surprised if most people on this forum wouldn't agree. But so far, that's seems to be the only response I've received: "The kid belongs to the parents, and who is the government or anyone else to ever question a parent's decision?"

Let me explain it to you in a very simple way. Parents must be in control of vaccines, period. When my son was born, they wanted to immediately give him a vitamin k shot (completely unnecessary if you wait to cut the cord until it has stopped pulsing, ie ALL the blood has reached the baby) so we refused... they wanted to immediately give him a HEP B shot, we refused as neither my wife nor I have that particular STD, they wanted to put Gonorrhea Anti-bacterial $#@! in his eyes, again we don't have any STDs so we refused and all that stuff really interferes with initial bonding and nursing of the infant.

It will be a cold day in hell and over my dead body before someone will tell me that my choices listed above are NOT my choices and they will FORCE my child to take those vaccines.

I am not an "Anti-vaxxer", but I am extremely well read on the subject, as a result, I am well informed. We use an alternate schedule for vaccines that spread the vaccine out over longer time periods and never more than one shot per visit. We also have opted out of several vaccines altogether, but still get some. (We skip the varicella for example).

I understand the desire to "protect the children" but this argument/debate is very simple. Parents and informed physicians can and should 100% decide for themselves what is best for their children... NOT THE $#@!ING STATE.

[Created4]

So the question is what control do you think the government should have?

That was my question in the OP. So far no one's really answered, although there are strong suggestions that most folks think the answer is "None", regardless of how abusive the parent's behavior is.

The problem is you "beg" the question and use non-sequitur examples to promote your position.

The answer to your question is quite simple: We have the Constitution to protect rights and to give government power to rule over the people through legislation and the legal system.

So, to use one of your examples which is quite different than medical decisions, if a parent spanks a child to the extent that he/she is severely injured, that is true abuse and we have laws and the criminal justice system to prosecute such an offense. It is a law enforcement issue, to protect rights and uphold the law. In the criminal justice system, the accused has constitutional rights such as trial by jury.

But the Constitution and those rights are routinely abused by Child Social Services today, which is nothing more than a BILLION dollar child trafficking business, where the government decides who is a good parent and who is not.

The battle over vaccines and any other medical decision should be first and foremost a legislative battle, so that law enforcement or lawsuits are based on the rule of law, and not the opinions of doctors, social workers, etc. (Many doctors don't give vaccines or give them at a reduced rate)

If you want to take a child for any medical reason, you should have to get a judge to sign a warrant to do so first, and then the parents/care givers should have their day in court, REAL court and not the Kangaroo family courts currently supported by federal funding for foster care and adoption.

What we have currently in terms of children being taken away for medical reasons is tyranny, as the rule of law and the Constitution are not followed in taking children away from parents in almost all of these situations. It is medical kidnapping. The children don't want to leave their home, and neither do the parents, but it happens anyway with no due process of law. Tyranny.

Does the State Ever Have a “Right” to Remove Children from a Home?

[euphemia]

Excellent point. The regimes are too soon and too intense these days and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see they are problematic at best.

Life experience is sometimes a really good teacher. My generation and my daughter's generation rarely had complications from vaccines, or even from the actual diseases.

I'm not a conspiracy fan, but it seems like there is some pressure to get kids away from parents and into day cares...vaccines are the golden ticket for entry.

[Sonny Tufts]

So far, you are the only one suggesting that parents who don't want their kids vaccinated are abusive.

I never suggested that. In the original post I simply asked, "At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment?" No one seems to want to answer that, although Merkelstan's post lays out the knee-jerk viewpoints of both extremes.

Forget it.

[euphemia]

Just because you don't want to define your terms...whatever.

It is not abusive not to vaccinate a child. Government should not require vaccinations for anything. Abusers are going to abuse, and in case you haven't read around, government tends to define abuse, or even the suspicion of abuse, very broadly. Kids are taken from their homes because of such abuse as being born at home with the aid of a midwife or not being vaccinated. Parents should have the right to live in somewhat primitive conditions and be self-sufficient if that's what they choose.

The system is abusive, if you really want to know.

[Created4]

In the original post I simply asked, "At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment?"

Actually, I did answer it. There is something called a "Constitution" that protects the rights of the people and also grants power to the government to enforce laws to protect those rights.

[euphemia]

To be specific to your question, I don't think there is a line to cross where parents raising their children becomes child endangerment. To be clear, beating, starving, or putting kids in cages does not fall under the heading of "raising" children. They are already codified into general criminal law. Nobody is allowed to do that to anyone. Except government.

[William Tell]

I never suggested that. In the original post I simply asked, "At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment?" No one seems to want to answer that, although Merkelstan's post lays out the knee-jerk viewpoints of both extremes.

Forget it.

Why don't you answer it? The rest of us are for complete parental control over vaccines for their children.

[euphemia]

What I would consider over the line is when parents put their children over the railing to a zoo area where dangerous animals can be seen. That's child endangerment--especially when the parent loses her grip and the child falls in and is killed.

[jllundqu]

I never suggested that. In the original post I simply asked, "At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment?" No one seems to want to answer that, although Merkelstan's post lays out the knee-jerk viewpoints of both extremes.

Forget it.

I posted it earlier and you ignored my post.

I'll say it again. No one, certainly no one in government, can tell me, as the parent, what to inject into my child, period. The rest of your hypotheticals are already covered by criminal law.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort].

There have been many studies showing the positive effects of prayer on healing. Here are excerpts from a literature review:

In another systematic review, Crawford et al.[31] examined the quality of studies of hands-on healing and distance healing that were published between 1955 and 2001. There were 90 identified studies of which 45 had been conducted in clinical settings and 45 in laboratory settings. Crawford et al.[31] reported that 71% of the clinical studies and 62% of the laboratory studies reported positive outcomes;...

***

Astin et al.[30] conducted a systematic review of the literature on the efficacy of any form of distant healing as a treatment for any medical condition. A total of 23 trials involving 2,774 patients met the inclusion criteria and were subjected to analysis. Of these studies, 13 (57%) yielded statistically significant treatment effects favoring distant healing, nine showed no superiority of distant healing over control interventions and one showed a negative effect for distant healing.

***

Cha et al.[32] found that the women who had been prayed for had nearly twice as high a pregnancy rate as those who had not been prayed for...

***

Lesniak[33] described a study on the effect of intercessory prayer on wound healing in a nonhuman primate species. The sample comprised 22 bush babies (Otolemur garnettii) with wounds resulting from chronic self-injurious behavior. These animals were randomized into prayer and control groups that were similar at baseline. Prayer was conducted for 4 weeks. Both groups of bush babies additionally received L-tryptophan. Lesniak[33] found that the prayer group animals had a greater reduction in wound size and a greater improvement in hematological parameters than the control animals. This study is important because it was conducted in a nonhuman species; therefore, the likelihood of a placebo effect was removed.


..

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

I never suggested that. In the original post I simply asked, "At what point do parents' rights to raise their kids cross the line and become child endangerment?"

People answered your question. Maybe if you'd stopped trolling long enough, you could have a discussion and learn something. Listen more. Talk less.

No one seems to want to answer that, although Merkelstan's post lays out the knee-jerk viewpoints of both extremes.

You talked about "chaining it [a child] to the wall of an unlit tool shed, and feeding it only bread and water for a week," and you say others are talking knee jerk extremes?!

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Another believes modern medicine is wrong and is willing to treat a child's [appendicitis] [compound fracture] [cancer] with [prayer] [voodoo practices] [St. John's Wort].

St John's Wort is modern medicine. Walgreen's sells it. Peer reviewed studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in treating some forms of depression, even as much as prescription drugs. Peer reviewed research also shows it helps with other similar issues, like sleep disorders, anxiety, and a whole laundry list.

It appears to me that uneducated government advocates like you are the ones detrimental to children's well-being.