A family of anti-vaxxers is exhibiting a bit of … well … grasping arrogance:
A group of Missouri parents told an Eighth Circuit panel on Tuesday that the state requires them to go through a forced indoctrination session to religiously opt out of vaccines required for their children to attend school.
“This is a hybrid rights case,” plaintiffs’ attorney Linus Baker told the three-judge panel via a teleconference hearing. “It has many fundamental rights. These parents cannot raise these children the way they want, they cannot provide informed consent, the children’s bodily integrity is violated. The parents have to violate their own religious beliefs, and they have to speak, they have to communicate, and all that together says that neutral generally acceptable law does not apply.” [Courthouse News Service]
No, of course … These parents cannot raise these children the way they want. Being part of a society means there are out-of-bounds areas in the field of raising children. How about if someone wants to raise their children such that they should kill at least one cop per year?
Yeah, that wouldn’t go over so well, either.
That there’s even a religious exemption for vaccination is a weird bit of madness. I vote the United States should buy an island and let smallpox reign free on it. Whoever wants to be vaccination-free is sent to the island, becomes infected, and long videos taken of the righteous, ummmm, victims.
Let anti-vaxxers deal with that. OK, so they’d just deny the authenticity of the video. Sorry, sorry, I’m feeling a bit peevish today, and I’m at work, which means I’m staring at detail, so when I read this article, this attorney’s argument tripped the red flag wire.
