This is an excellent post! I was just having a conversation with my mother about this very issue! Here, in America, many states practically FORCE parents to vaccinate their children. In order to get around it, parents often have to prove a religious reason to avoid having Child Services become involved, threaten their parental rights, and/or public school systems refusing to allow the children to receive the education guaranteed to all citizens. The funny thing is that they preach how "necessary" vaccines are for prevention and protection for your child from these diseases, and how the "benefit far outweighs the risk", however, when a case of Measels or something pops up, the FIRST thing that is said is how the unvaccinated individual is putting the entire population at risk. The parent is belittled, and sometimes even threatened with criminal charges, because her sick child put everyone else's child in danger of contracting this terrible disease (and don't get me wrong, it IS terrible!!). HOWEVER...if the whole point of your child being vaccinated is to build immunity and keep them from contracting these diseases, how, then, is it a danger to the vaccinated kids if an unvaccinated child happens to come down with one of the diseases? Isn't that a counterproductive argument that runs in circles with no end?? If vaccines keep kids from getting those illnesses, then a child with no vaccines who contracts an illness should not be able to give the disease to a vaccinated child...in theory...right? So why is it that if MY child doesn't have her shots, then she somehow puts every other vaccinated child in mortal danger of getting these illnesses that they HAVE had shots to protect them against??
Love this post...so much!