Not really, no. Several people are arguing that vaccines should be mandated (including me) but that doesn’t mean jail time automatically. Others are arguing that jail was correct in this case because she violated a court order, not directly because of vaccination. @8080256256 just said that it should be potentially jailable, and that’s pretty much it in terms of people here arguing for exactly that. No one is arguing for “exactly” that, and one person is arguing for something kinda like that, though they weren’t explicitly arguing for jail time when you made your statement.
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Some vaccination good news.
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For clarification - I meant to say: If the public health situation becomes so dire that the appropriate democratically elected bodies decide to attach a criminal penalty as the most severe consequence of failing to have one’s child vaccinated, I would not consider that obviously excessive. I’m not exactly clamoring for it at this point.
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I can imagine how this is going to play on those parts of the Internet.
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“The judge also noted that she changed the kids’ schools and therapists also without the father’s consent, which indicates that the anti-vaxxer woo is part of a larger power game between her and the father, using the court as a tool and the kids as pawns.”
And that’s what makes my blood boil the most- using the kids to ‘get back’ at the ex. All that’s going to result in is therapy for the kids when they realize what their parents did to them, and a lot of hard feelings.
Hate your ex’s guts, but for the love of %Deity%, don’t involve the kids in it.
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Considering that she had to get a nonmedical waiver in order to send her kid to school, it’s safe to assume that we’re talking about standard childhood vaccines.
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No. Assuming is not allowed.
My kids school required both job and the swine flu vaccine to be done.
I want details before deciding further.
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Google is your friend: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdhhs/School_Req_for_Schools_553548_7.pdf
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Why not just make vaccines transmissible, like natural viruses are? Then most people will catch them automatically.
We impose all sorts of restrictions on “bodily autonomy” for people, children and adults alike. In the interests of health and safety, we have laws stating:
- you must wear a seatbelt and kids must to be strapped into car seats
- you can’t smoke in the car if you have kids in the car
- your kids must be kept healthy
- your kids must learn to read and write
- kids must wear a helmet when riding a bike
- kids can’t buy or drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or marijuana
- kids must be of a certain age/have their parent’s permission to work at a job
Unless your kids have a medical condition which makes impossible their being vaccinated, not vaccinating your kids is child endangerment.
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Our law already regularly throws parents in jail for violating court orders. For example, currently all 50 states have provisions for incarceration of a parent for nonpayment of child support. Actual numbers are hard to come by, but a study in 2009 showed that 13% of the inmates in South Carolina were there for nonpayment of support.
That’s silly. That isn’t what @Magdalene is saying and you know it.
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Can’t say I have any sympathy for the mother. What was she expecting to happen when she defied a direct court order? Never mind that she’s an anti-vaxxer (although fuck those Nurgle cultists, on principle); she’d go to jail if she had defied any court order.
Also: I really don’t think that the mom going to jail for seven days is going to irreversibly screw up her kids, any more than being raised by an anti-vaxxer will.
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Yeah, sure. But those are two separate issues - the obligation and the sanction if you fail to fulfill it. It’s not automatically necessary (or appropriate) to punish every failure with jail time.
Should I assume the world has always been insane, and that the internet just makes it easier to see?
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If that’s supposed to be a logical argument in favor of jail time in this case, rather than just an illuminating fact that also makes me want to cry at the state of mankind, it’s not working as intended…
Just out of curiosity, what penalty would you impose on someone who defies a court order?
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Yup.
The problem with any kind of law is always how do you enforce it. Ultimately you can only enforce it, if people are prepared to let you.
Once you get to the stage of - do this or go to jail, if someone is prepared to go to jail, what have you achieved? Certainly not compliance with the law.
Sadly, laws are very blunt tools but they are all we have.
Mainly because experiments with more fine-tuned punishments have never gone well - see every story about nutjob sheriffs making people stand by the road side with signs or wear pink clothing or whatever.
In this case, the only thing I can suggest is that the father could potentially request custody on the basis that his wife is unfit because she would rather go to jail (and thereby render herself unable to look after her child) than comply with the agreement she reached voluntarily.
You could argue that the state could step in with the same argument and say that her children should be taken into care unless some other suitable person can be found to take parental responsibility for them but I think that would be a step too far for most people (certainly in America given your very strong insistence on personal freedoms).
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I don’t envy the judge in this case. I don’t think there is a “winning” move to play here, and I honestly don’t know what my solution would be. Were I in the judge’s shoes, it’s possible I would find this woman to be so personally insufferable that I would consider myself lenient for giving her 7 days in jail. It’s also possible that her husband is an abusive asshole, and the judge is a misogynist, and they’ve both driven her to paranoia. I don’t know.
My only point is that there is no way this is going to read anywhere as not “state throws woman in jail for not vaccinating her child.” Perhaps some people on the fence do just need to know that we mean business when it comes to vaccination, and this will kick their butts into gear. However, given that the narrative of anti-vaxxers is “Big pharma is using the force of the state to extract profit from helpless mothers” this doesn’t win hearts and minds. I do think the vaccine battle is a hearts and minds battle.
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Thanks for posting that. Seems like a straightforward, legit and up-to-date government document to me, complete with support from the CDC. There are no mandatory flu jabs of any sort on that list, only the standard childhood vaccines you assumed.
Making the generous assumption she only refused her child one of those vaccinations in the recommended CDC dose, I wonder which one would not make her a crackpot or loon (AKA an anti-vaxxer and/or vengeful ex using the kids as pawns): DTaP (includes whooping cough), polio, MMR, Hep B, meningococcal, chickenpox?
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