My right to believe nonsense

I’m not sure this is the best use of my time, but I wanted to weigh in on the vaccination debate. I’ll start by tipping my hand and saying that I think parents should vaccinate, but I’m not sure how much right we have to make them.

A while back I wrote something about my frustration with conservatives default argument - nobody can tell me what to do. I wrote then, and still believe now, that while I am sick of every argument coming down to that, I do understand the argument. I get it. I have a right to run my life without government interfering. Cerainly the choices I make to protect my children are among the most important choices I need to make, and I don’t want someone else taking that responsibility away from me.

On the other hand, we need to balance the rights of other parents who don’t want to be exposed to a deadly disease. How do we balance that against my rights.

So this is a complicated issue for me.

I believe that one has a right to belive whatever one believes ( as long as one doesn’t call it science unless it is ), but I am very disturbed by what I see as an anti-science culture in my country.

And the science is not complicated.

Vaccines pose a small risk. If I’m going to make an educcated decsion about that for my children, I have to factor in that risk - no matter how small. I don’t like to focus too much on the details, but normally as a father I handle these kinds of risk decisions based on the potential loss. There are certainly behaviors I can allow in my children that are have a high risk. I tend to disallow, or strongly discourage, those behaviors unless the potential reward is great enough. On the ohter hand, if the risk is small, and the potential outcome is bearable, I am more apt to allow that behavior. A good example is letting my six year old play on playground equipment. I don’t want her to break her wrist, but if she does, we can deal with it.

There are other risks, however, that no matter how small, I am not going to allow. I was very careful about letting my children wander around on their own, for example. Antother great example is my choice not to take general anestesia for elective surgery on myself. The risk may be small, but the potential downside is great.

Using that logic, one might assume I am against vaccinations, but there is more to this one. I have to factor in the impact I have on society as a whole. As hard as it might be for me to put my own children at risk, I have to think of the big picture. If my fear of losing my children to death or a disorder puts the lives of potentially millions of other people, I have to at least consider that risk.