Given that parents are responsible for the well-being of their children, and not vaccinating a child against a potentially lethal disease is close to child abuse, it seems to me that vaccination ought to be compulsary. Or is this anti-libertarian?
Define: children. 18? 16? 12? 10?
Imagine how many children die each year due to car accidents, should children not be allowed to ride in cars since it potentially lethal?
Compulsory immunization is definitely anti-libertarian.
It’s permissible for, say, a school to require students be vaccinated, though.
As long as he lives under my roof, be he 10, 18 or 33, he’ll do as I wish.
I think it would be anti-libertarian if I were to be fined by some arbitrary organization of men with whom I have not expressly associated myself (or my children). Or if that same arbitrary organization of men decided that I should be locked in a cage for an equally arbitrary period of time for either failure to comply with demands to vaccinate my children or failure to pay fines they “imposed” upon me without my express consent.
It could also be argued, to some extent, that vaccination of a child could constitute an invasion of his person. Such an invastion, given that there is much controversy regarding the efficacy of vaccines versus the harm they, themselves, could cause in the body, could be at least in some cases argued as “aggressive,” especially when the child himself does not want to be vaccinated.
It is not, however, anti-libertrairan for a [private] school or perhaps an insurance agency offering “medical” or “health” coverage to charge different amounts to or refuse to do business with those who do not vaccinate their children. It is entirely the prerogative any individual or group of individuals to refuse to associate (or do business) with any individual for any reason. This would include for the reasons of refusal to vaccinate. This is very much libertarian. It only becomes anti-libertarian when you use aggression (i.e. violence or the threat of violence) in order to obtain compliance with your preference with which other people (who inherently own themselves) who otherwise have no interest in or desire to comply.
Of course it is illegitimate to force people to take shots. You don’t get to push people around.
If you want them to take shots so much bribe them - give them a monetary reward to do it.
You’ll never really know whether they work or not if they aren’t taken voluntarily.
I never really thought about that before.
What if the non vaccinated child is driven (in a car) by his parents much less (or hardly at all) then another child who is vaccinated, and it can be demonstrated that the overall risk for death is greater for the vaccinated child due to his daily commute?
Why is the potentially lethal accident that can result from the extra driving not also “close to child abuse”???
Or, for that matter, the act of bringing children into this world at all, since life is necessarily rife with suffering and death… 
All parents are SADISTS!
If I were a parent I would probaby force my child to get a vaccine. Likewise, If I were running a private school it wouldn’t be out of my mind to make vaccination mandatory.
As long as he lives under my roof, be he 10, 18 or 33, he’ll do as I wish.
Sex acts?
Vaccinating anybody without their consent is an initiation of force and thus a violation of libertarian law. This includes vaccinating a small child. Should that person later wish to prosecute their parents, they have the right to do so under libertarian law. I doubt this would happen too frequently, as many vaccinations are arguably beneficial and it is likely that the vast majority of people would forgive such an initiation of force.
A parent is supposed to promote the well-being of their child, but children have all of the same rights that any other human being has and a parent has no right, under libertarian law, to aggress against their kids. Period. If the kids wish to prosecute their parents for aggression, they have the right to do so.
I don’t think parents who vaccinate their kids will be as likely to be prosecuted as parents who force their kids to undergo body modification (there are many people who argue that certain forms of body modification are beneficial and others who practice body modification for religious reasons) or that hit their kids, but should the kids not wish to have a vaccine injected into their body, that is their right. Since they are too young to give informed consent to these acts, parents need to make decisions based on how likely it is that they will consent when they are capable of doing so. You do not have the right to initiate force against another person without their consent, even if you think it is for their own good.
The fact that a kid is living in your house does not give you the right to initiate force against him without informed consent. Once he is capable of giving informed consent, you may set conditions that have to be met for him to continue to live in your house, but you certainly can’t do that with somebody who doesn’t understand what they are agreeing to.
Yes, BUT:
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people have a right to be appalled by my behavior, cutting me out from social life.
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my insurer has a right to be appalled, denying be coverage thus making me an outlaw.
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people could buy by kid. As Rothbard says, parents who really love kids will be wiling to pay, wile those who don’t give a damn will be happy to get the money. Note than quite e few very successful entreprenours where adopted early on by loving, though not biological, parents.
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the kids could runaway and you would have no right to take them back by force.
Any initiation of force on another is anti-libertarian. Thus the imposition by government to coerce its population to be vaccinated is in fact anti-libertarian. Additionally bribing people to take vaccines with government extracted funds is also anti-libertarian since those funds have also been extracted using the coercive threat of violence by the government on those who pay to fund the bribing.
It is certainly wrong for any organization to coerce anyone into preventative health. Not wrong for preventative health to be a prerequisite to access to someone else’s property by their own judgement.
The argument that it is wrong for the parents to force a child to do anything is just an idiotic over-generalization of out of context principles. It sounds pithy and revolutionary. The parent / child relationship is unique in that the child’s incapacity is due to the parents initial action. The parent has a responsibility to “nurse” the child to health (adulthood) and make decisions in their best interest until the child can rationally make them for themselves. That age is MUCH lower than is commonly used in legislation though.
- The most important manifestation of liberty is the freedom to be foolish, unhealthy, or wrong.
- ALL widespread tyranny occurs with the excuse that it’s imposing wisdom, health, and rightness.
It’s not only anti-libertarian, but harmful.
First, the parent is the only real proxy for the child’s own self-determination. By violating the parent’s decision, the government violates the child’s right to choose. This sets a double precedent for the direct violation of the adult’s right to choose, himself. His right is abrogated when he’s a child, and when he’s a parent.
Second, the right to choose is a principle, like “innocent until proven guilty”. Even if “everyone knows” you are guilty, it is imperative that the trial occur, that your rights as the accused by protected. Likewise, even if “everyone knows” that a vaccine is good, the principle of freedom of choice is imperative.
So even before we break down the fallacy of “not vaccinating a child against a potentially lethal disease is close to child abuse” which is sheer nonsense, it is clear that mandatory vaccination is evil, and must be prevented.
Then we get to that…the claim that it’s close to child abuse: If the vaccine is actually more good than harmful (which is probably the case PART of the time, but definitely not the case all of the time), then it will become common in society, and that will create a firebreak that prevents widespread outbreaks of that ailment.
In other words, the disease becomes rare because MORE people get the vaccine, even if not all.
This is akin to how people carrying concealed weapons protects foolish pacifists who never would, because the criminal can’t tell which he’s considering robbing.
Meanwhile, of course, we can look to the H1N1 panic last year, where a sane examination tells me that, rather than getting a vaccination against the disease, if you’re healthy you should have gone out of your way to be EXPOSED to the disease, because H1N1 had a lower mortality rate than the common flu. Exposure would train your immune system to resist a widespread range of flu strains, whereas the vaccine would only protect you from the specific ones included, leaving you more vulnerable to catch the common flu.
And then there’s the fact that, just one generation ago, “medical science” was dead certain that breast feeding was bad for babies.
Be glad that the government didn’t ban it, in order to “protect the baby’s health” from “parental abuse” via exposure to mother’s milk.
No matter how certain we are, we stick to the principles.