One of the issues with vaccination has to do with the safety of the vaccines. It is inexcusable that those government entities responsible for the public safety allowed this situation to develop. Questions regarding the safety of the vaccines should have been addressed adequately and immediately. Instead, the possible connection with autism, and with other heath concerns, was denied. Mothers took their children's health into their own hands without adequate understanding of the risks, and refused to vaccinate.
Now, with so many children not protected, we are encouraged to believe it is the parents who have been irresponsible. The issue that should be addressed, as I see it, is proving or disproving the autism connection and correcting the issue of the preservative being used ~ and of addressing, truthfully and completely, any question or concern, however rudimentary, regarding vaccination. Instead, we are told to trust the very government entities who, though they are responsible for the public health, did not and do not address parents' questions adequately, thereby creating the unbelievable situation of parents afraid to vaccinate their children and having nowhere to learn the information they need to make a rational decision.
I cannot tell you how this upsets me ~ that a government entity whose function is the public safety has failed to perform even to minimal expectation (given that there are parents afraid to vaccinate because they have not been given adequate information to make that decision and so, err on the side of safety for their children today, deciding to worry about whatever illness might come when it happens). And yet, it is the parents who choose not to vaccinate who are being faulted instead of the government entity. The thing is, the only answer to this situation is for the government entity to address and correct the problem or the misinterpretation of facts regarding the safety of vaccination. Or to address and prove the safety and reliability of where the vaccine is manufactured. That, unbelievably enough, has also been a valid concern.
Or to address any and every question parents may have regarding the safety and efficacy of anything having to do with their children.
Instead, a law will be made requiring vaccination.
This is a soapbox issue for me.
It upsets me to see the public trust destroyed in these ways. It is happening around other issues, too. We are not being given adequate responses to our questions so that we can make our decisions based on knowledge, and not fear.
It is mind-boggling to understand that the larger and more officious bureaucracies become, the less responsive they are to those in whose names they were created. Laws will be passed or punishments enacted against those who refuse to participate. Information, answers to questions regarding safety and efficacy and purpose is what is required. Yet these issues are not being addressed adequately.
It is mind-boggling that this situation could exist.
Children will suffer as these diseases once thought eradicated again become commonplace.
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There are states now (Oregon is one) where right to die laws are in effect. We will learn from their experiences regarding how the State responds to the costs of caring for the vulnerable and the elderly when this option exists as a legal alternative. There will be questions around the issue of assisted suicide for young people, too.
There is no way to know how to do this. The technology exists and so, we will be dealing with these questions whether we do it openly or not. Not to open another can of worms here, but abortion has been made legal. Like suicide, it was already happening. To have made it legal guaranteed that the procedure would be completed safely. It was decided that the woman has the right to decide what will happen to her own body.
In a way, this is the same discussion.
We have the right, and the responsibility, to decide how our lives will end for ourselves, too. Just as (so far, anyway) no one can decree that another person have an abortion, so will those same stringent requirements come into existence around medically assisted suicide.
Medically assisted suicide was the next logical step, and is a valid question whose ultimate answer has to do, as the question of legalized abortion does too, with the meaning and value of life. The question becomes whether life itself is sacred, or whether there is some other measure by which we will learn to judge our intrinsic value.
On the issue of death with dignity, I believe we can take a lesson from Hospice. There is a sacred, all-inclusive mystery here having to do with a life lived ~ however it was lived ~ and a passing away of that time. We need to incorporate that sacred knowledge of what it is to be alive into our living and into the completion of our living that is our dying.
It deeply disturbs me that we are not addressing these issues around the topic of abortion. That life too was sacred. In China during their cultural revolution, a woman could be made to abort her babies in the name of the common good.
Many things have been justified in the name of the common good. That is the crux of the issue, I think. How do we guarantee that these kinds of decisions can only be made by the individual directly affected. The descriptor for this issue, death with dignity, should be named correctly from the beginning for all of us: medically assisted suicide.
That way, we can keep a handle on who is deciding what, and just what it is they are deciding and for whom.
That term, death with dignity, should be changed, in our discussions I think. Just as Maya Angelou teaches, our words carry a terrible power.
So, though I am still not so clear on just how I think these subjects should be approached and handled, I am going to use my words to call death with dignity medically assisted suicide, so I can keep hold of what it is that is happening there.
Great discussion, Copa. I have a greater sense of clarity around these issues, now. Of course parents should vaccinate their children for the sakes of the children, and for all our sakes. But it is a true thing that parents are behaving responsibly based on what they know or can learn.
I do not understand why the government entities involved have not adequately addressed the issues of safety and efficacy.
One would think there could be a government website where parents could pose and receive speedy answers to every concern having to do with vaccination. The parents' questions would inform the medical professionals regarding which issues need clarification. Science is science. There is an answer. Yes, there is risk, and this is its percentage of chance, and this is what may happen to your child without vaccination. Or, there is no risk and here is the research validating our recommendation to vaccinate.
Cedar
