Vaccinations: Being Held Responsible for Irresponsibility – A Case for No Legal Immunity

Ok, you’re free to choose to not get an H1N1 vaccination. At least as long as the Swine flu does not evolve into a highly fatal plague that would actually threaten the continuity and existence of our very nation. You know, that point when everyone who doesn’t want it would be willing to kill everyone else if they got in the way of them getting the vaccine. But that is the most extreme case. Under that circumstance, no one would be looking to figure out how to protect the rights of everyone else from the folks who decided to not get the vaccine. After all, most of them would be dead; or those few who are not would be lucky Darwinian survivors, who might possess useful genetic traits that can be harnessed to protect the public in the future.

But what about a mid-way scenario, a circumstance in which everyone who would want to be vaccinated is not able to because there is just not enough supply. This could be a transient condition, where eventually the supply will come to meet the needs of anyone who wants it; and where those in need haven’t yet succumb to the disease. In this case, there are individuals who will contract the flu from others, and as likely or not and most probably from the very group of individuals who choose not to be vaccinated. If you are one of these flu-stricken individuals who is sickened and even killed because of the inaction of others; don’t you or your survivors have a legitimate claim against the people who contributed to the spread of the infection? After all, if I knowingly spread the AIDS virus to other, isn’t there case law that says that I am guilty of attempted murder? How is contributing to the spread of the H1N1 flu not an analogous action? Why aren’t non-vaccinated by choice individuals culpable of their decisions.

If you don’t get vaccinated and through that decision you effectively allow yourself to become another carrier of the H1N1 flu when you become infected, then why don’t you have a responsibility to the consequences of that decision?

You can claim that there is no way to show a direct link between their decision and my contracting the flu. And let’s face it, there isn’t. But it is also true that the H1N1 flu cannot spread without hosts that carry and disseminate the virus. By not vaccinating, these individuals become the very vectors that propagate the disease to others. Thus the very fact that the disease is spreading is proof that individuals who are not protected are spreading it to others, and they are doing so at a multiplicative rate. One of them spreads to flu to two, three or even dozens of others in the population. And were it not for those who are getting vaccinated, the virus would be spreading even more rapidly throughout the populace. Your guilt is because you actively supported the spread of the flu; and you are therefore responsible for the impact that the disease has upon people who were placed at risk because of those actions.

In a free society where you have the right to decide to be vaccinated or to not be, you should also have the responsibility to account for your choice and to be held liable for it. The important question is what are the consequences to you for having placed others at risk? Today, there are no consequences imposed by our social system.

But if your son or daughter, your husband or wife, your brother or sister, or your friends and neighbors were harmed or killed by such actions; would you find people who promote and advise others to not be vaccinated completely free of responsibility? Would you think it was their right to contribute to this result?

I am sure of my position which is: if you demand the protection of your rights and freedoms from our society that you are also responsible and required to protect that system, and that you will be held accountable for failure to do so.