The following rebuttals to the left’s ongoing attack on medical freedom and bodily autonomy are a great way to prove that personal freedoms are essential.
1. California had more measles cases than Texas in 2019
In 2019, California had 73 confirmed measles cases with 41 of those cases associated with six outbreaks. Texas had 23 measles cases in 2019. This is significant because California had vaccine mandates in 2019 with only medical exemptions while Texas had and still has vaccine exemptions available based on reasons of conscience.
2. Adding more steps to obtaining religious and philosophical exemptions decreases exemption rates while preserving citizens freedoms.
This subject is from my article called public health ethics and the importance of philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions. The Oxford article on public health ethics advocates for more steps to obtain philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions rather than eliminating them, showing that states like Michigan that added more steps to obtain these exemptions lowered their exemption rates while preserving citizens’ fundamental liberties. This is a segment from the article:
“Michigan’s experience in 2015 was consistent with research on the efficacy of more burdensome exemption policies. The number of new nonmedical vaccine waivers in Michigan fell dramatically in 2015—down 39 per cent statewide compared with 2014 (Higgins, 2016). In some areas of the state, such as Detroit, waiver rates fell by over 60 per cent. Michigan achieved this striking decline in waiver rates without taking on the liabilities of either Eliminationism or Prioritizing Religion, which is the chief reason to prefer Inconvenience: it decreases waiver rates without the disadvantages of other kinds of reforms. We ought to prefer methods of decreasing waiver rates that preserve liberties, promote fairness and minimize coercion, over methods of decreasing waiver rates that lack these virtues.”
3. Along with many benefits, vaccines also carry risks like other medical procedures.
If you look at vaccine inserts, medical contraindications and possible adverse reactions are listed. A good example of this is the insert for a MMR vaccine.
Some adverse reactions are anaphylaxis, encephalitis, and transverse myelitis.
More information can be found here:
https://www.fda.gov/media/75191/download
