Wednesday 29 May 2013

Parental Rights and Common Good


Apparently, as I type this, the Parliament of NSW is debating changes to public health legislation which will lead to mandatory vaccination of children. This provoked a considerable controversy on the FaceBook wall of a friend of mine (I imagine it provoked controversy in other places too) and, surprisingly enough, I was drawn into the fray.

The debate centered around two separate questions: first, does vaccination actually help or harm public health and, secondly, even assuming vaccination aids public health, is it acceptable for the state to coerce parents on this matter.

I avoided part one; I’m a philosopher, not a doctor and not a public health expert. On the second issue, however, I had a bit more to say. Now, I can imagine that many of my friends who are utilitarians/ consequentialists will find this an easy question. I however, am not a consquentialist; I think parental rights are a real thing and they need to be respected. On this occasion, however, I agree with the consequentialists in their practical conclusion. I think the value of vaccination to the common good is such that the state may legitimately over-ride parental claims in this matter.

I’ve laid out my reasoning on this matter below. Before I give it, however, I need to make a couple of a couple of points: I’m not, at this time, interested in debate on natural law theory versus consquentialism. If you are a consequentialist, or an adherent of any other school than natural law, please view the following as an exercise in “what if”. Second, while the effectiveness of vaccination and the lack of any significant risk thereof are premises of my argument, I’m not much interested in debating those either. Once again, if you are one of those people who disagree with the near universal consensus amoung actual health practitioners who regard vaccination as a good thing, treat the below as a “what if.”

One final point, the views, expressed in this post, are my own and not necessarily the views of any group I may be affiliated with.

1)      Parents have a universal duty to not needlessly endanger the lives or health of their children.

2)      Citizens have a universal duty to not needlessly endanger the lives or health of their fellow citizens.

3)      The state has a legitimate interest in legislating to ensure that people meet their duties under (1) and (2) above.

4)      While the duties under (1) and (2) above are universal, the exact nature of what constitutes “needlessly endangering” may legitimately vary from situation to situation.

5)      If, within a given society, there exists a certain technology such that said technology is easily available, that the use of said technology does not involve any significant cost or risk to the user and such that the use of said technology will lead to greatly reduced risks to the lives or health of others, then failure to make use of such technology violates either (1) or (2) above.

6)      From (1) – (3) above it follows that, if, within a given society, there exists a technology which meets the criteria given in (5), then, the state has a legitimate interest in compelling the use of that technology.

7)      In 21st century NSW, vaccination does, in fact, meet the criteria given in  (5)

8)      It follows from (6) and (7) above that the state of NSW has a legitimate interest in compelling the use of vaccination.

6 comments:

  1. No argument from me on this one.

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  2. * Statement 4 seems definitional and not actually part of the argument. Actually I think S4 could be a little bit tricky - because there's a difference between "not endanger" and "actively protect". Following on from that thought, my thinking isn't that sophisticated, but I can't help but think about with abortion issue there's a distinction between killing and letting die, one based on intervention and the other not. With vaccination it is based on an intervention. Anyway, I don't have the time to think about this further.

    * Statements 5 & 7, as you said is based on the assumption that vaccines are safe and effective. I know you don't want to debate about this, but I can't help it ... You can see the contribution to preventing deaths that vaccines have made in the CDC document here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm4829.pdf
    (You might be surprised)

    It's also based on the assumption that they are at low cost. Vaccine companies make BILLIONS of dollars, so there is actually a significant cost.

    * Statement 8 - I disagree with the word "compelling" perhaps a better word is "encourage" or maybe even "mandate". Compelling could include the creation of a lock-down and the use of physical force to vaccinate everyone. I can't necessarily see where your argument would fail with the use of physical force - but I know the use of physical force to achieve that end would be a violation of human rights.

    Now, I've reproduced your argument - and I've only changed one word: "vaccination". The other bonus is, with the word change, statements 5 & 7 now holds up legitimately (ie "does not involve significant cost or risk"; "leads to greatly reduced risks to lives and health of others").

    Would love to know your thoughts on this new argument?

    1) Parents have a universal duty to not needlessly endanger the lives or health of their children.

    2) Citizens have a universal duty to not needlessly endanger the lives or health of their fellow citizens.

    3) The state has a legitimate interest in legislating to ensure that people meet their duties under (1) and (2) above.

    4) While the duties under (1) and (2) above are universal, the exact nature of what constitutes “needlessly endangering” may legitimately vary from situation to situation.

    5) If, within a given society, there exists a certain technology such that said technology is easily available, that the use of said technology does not involve any significant cost or risk to the user and such that the use of said technology will lead to greatly reduced risks to the lives or health of others, then failure to make use of such technology violates either (1) or (2) above.

    6) From (1) – (3) above it follows that, if, within a given society, there exists a technology which meets the criteria given in (5), then, the state has a legitimate interest in compelling the use of that technology.

    7) In 21st century NSW, breast-feeding does, in fact, meet the criteria given in (5)

    8) It follows from (6) and (7) above that the state of NSW has a legitimate interest in compelling the use of breast-feeding.


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    (As a complete aside. I think you will enjoy http://www.rightreason.org/)

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    Replies
    1. Roy,

      Thanks for the comment. Thanks also for recomending the link which I took a look and and seems interesting.

      You're right about (4) in my argument being more of a footnote than a premise in its own right. I should probably have rethought how to present that. You are also correct in saying that some of my terminology is not as clear as it ought to have been. I plead a partial excuse that the post was composed in some haste, but you do raise valid points. I don't however, think that substantially effects my argument.

      On the costs issue, you are correct in saying companies make a lot of money from vaccines, however that doesn't change the fact of the relative cheapness to the individual families in question.

      As to your breast feeding argument, I could quibble and point out that breast feeding is not a technology, but I think, there are more substantial reasons why one could accept my vaccination argument and not support mandatory breast-feeding.

      1) Breast feeding involves an inconvienice to the mother involved that vaccination does not.

      2) While I agree that breast feeding increses the likely health of the child, I'm not aware that a failure to breast feed leads to the increased risk of fatal or crippling illness that failure to vaccinate can lead to.

      3) Failure to vaccinate leads to not only health risks for the unvaccinated child but to health risks for those around him or her because of the increased possibility of an outbreak.

      4) Mandated vaccinations would be a lot easier to enofrce.

      Thanks again for your comments :)

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    2. Hi Jason

      Thanks for your cordial response.

      1. Presumably this refers to 'cost'. If we're looking at more than economic cost, then you also need to consider breastfeeding vs formula ie - one has to heat a bottle (inconvenient), there's higher economic costs with formula, formula doesn't release oxytocin in the mother, formula doesn't have stem cells - so doesn't offer the baby the same health benefits and with vaccines mothers have to suffer through watching their kid(s) get pricked by a sharp needle multiple times.

      2. I think you're wrong about this - completely - but this is an area you said you didn't want to get into, but I'm happy to if you'd like.

      3. See #2.

      4. The argument didn't relate to ease of enforcement, so not sure on the relevance of this. They could put an excise tax on formula for example.

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    3. Just wanted to add to re: cost to the users ... if the Government is paying billions of dollars to vaccine companies for the vaccines, then where does the Government get the money from? To some extent - it's the users.

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