So I had an entirely different post outlined and ready to be written, but then my state had its seventy-ninth case of measles due to a lack of vaccines and I decided my first real post about social issues and/or parenting was going to have to be with this very simple message:
VACCINATE
YOUR
CHILDREN.
I mean by all means, don’t stop there. Vaccinate your kids, vaccinate your wife, they’re measles-ing everybody out here. (Outdated meme is outdated.)
Vaccinate yourself. Hell, even vaccinate your pets. Yes, that’s important.
Honestly, I can’t believe “do a very quick and simple thing early on in your kids’ lives to help ensure they and others don’t die painfully or suffer in general from completely preventable diseases” is even a controversial suggestion, let alone one I’m about to spend an entire blog post explaining and defending, but here we are anyway because what a world we live in. This is gonna be a long post, so sit tight, maybe grab a snack, take a quick pee before we get started, and try not to get your panties in a twist too early on.
So let’s deconstruct some of the arguments I’ve heard against vaccines, starting with what seems like the most simple and conclusive:
“My Child, My Choice.”
Catchy little mantra, right? It’s got alliteration and everything.
Here’s the thing: More often than not, I disagree with this mantra for a whole other reason. Whenever possible, it should be your child’s choice. You don’t own them. They are not an extension of you. They are their own person, and if you decide anything that happens to them is your choice to make, you’re doing two things: One, you’re asserting yourself as domineering and restricting your child’s growth. And two, you’re not giving your child the opportunity to learn HOW to make their own choices, because you’ve already decided that’s not their job.
Basically, you’re crippling your child’s own decision-making abilities while making yourself look like a total ass.
And that rebuttal is all well and good when it’s about, say, piercing your child’s ears before they’re old enough to tell you they want that done. But when it comes to vaccinations and other medical necessities, “My Child, My Choice” takes on a much darker and more terrifying role.
First of all, because it isn’t just your child. Here’s an important term to familiarize yourself with now: herd immunity. (If I bold it like in your sixth grade textbooks will you remember the vocabulary word?)
Basically, not everyone is able to be vaccinated. Some people aren’t old enough yet to receive certain vaccinations on schedule. Some people have medical issues that keep them from safely getting vaccinations. Some have compromised immune systems that make it unsafe. While immunizations are incredibly important to our society and wonderfully effective in the vast majority of people, it is not possible for all people to be vaccinated.
Does that mean vaccinations don’t work? Of course not. It means they work overtime. Because when YOU get vaccinated, or get your child vaccinated, you’re ensuring that regardless of whether you would’ve otherwise caught a given disease, you’re not going to be a carrier of it at any point, and thus not exposing those who can’t get vaccinated to the disease.
That said, you can probably thank those around you who HAVE gotten vaccinated for the fact that you haven’t caught any of these diseases yet.
Sure, in a dream world, everyone in the world would be capable of receiving a vaccine, so it truly would only be those who choose to be un-vaccinated who would die of preventable diseases and if that’s a risk you want to take at least you wouldn’t be hurting anyone else. But we don’t live in a dream world, and part of being a member of a functional society is ensuring you aren’t a walking danger to those around you.
And on that note, even if your child’s choices were entirely yours to make, that brings us to the next issue: Why on earth would it be your choice to risk your child dying painfully of an easily preventable disease? What the hell is wrong with you?
“But vaccines cause autism!”
Here’s another one we’re gonna have to break down in two parts.
The first part is simple: No they don’t. The end.
The second part is, for some reason, probably more controversial: Even if they did, who cares?
Autism isn’t some grand tragedy for you The Parent to overcome. It’s a developmental disability. And like any disability, whether physical or developmental, of course there are challenges. You, as a parent, may need to adapt to a personality other than the one you envisioned for your child. It does not make your child any less of a person.
IF your child got autism as a result of a vaccine—and the notion is so ridiculous that I’m only even humoring this point to show how cruel and thoughtless this mindset is to anyone with autism or any other disability—would you honestly rather have a dead child than an autistic one? And for the love of god, why? What the hell is wrong with you?
“Vaccines contain dangerous stuff!”
Yeah, did you know there’s mercury in every can of tuna you eat? Most of us ingest more mercury eating fish in a lifetime, by far, than we end up with in our bodies due to vaccines. Just because a word is scary doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you. You know what does kill people? Polio. At least it did until we eliminated it with vaccines.
“So, what, you’re just going to trust whatever your DOCTOR says instead of doing your OWN research?”
Um…Yes? My own research will amount to at most a matter of hours of reading information on the internet, where it’s incredibly easy to make stuff up, even on what looks like a verifiable site.
My doctor on the other hand has spent their entire life understanding exactly what vaccines do, how they work, why they work, what goes into them, what comes out of them, what the risks are, when the best time to be vaccinated against every type of preventable disease is, how to safely distribute vaccines, and so much more. My doctor knows more than me.
I’m not going to assume I know more than my car mechanic when it comes to how a car engine is assembled because I watched a YouTube video one time, and I’m sure as hell not going to assume I know more than the general consensus of almost all doctors and scientists and their life’s research because I read some stuff on the internet. Why would I? Why would you? What the hell is wrong with you?
Here’s my ultimate point here: The benefits of vaccines vastly outweigh the risks of them. By how much? Well, when I scoured the internet for “risks of vaccines,” I had to shovel through pages and pages and pages of all the risks of refusing vaccinations. And the most popular thought isn’t always the right one, but if risks are that hard to find, and benefits are that people aren’t dying en masse, I think it’s safe to say to vaccinate your damn children.
That Feminist Mom 