I’d argue that parents should be liable to the state, not the victim or their family. This is a societal issue, and civil liability won’t fix it.

Liable to the state but not your fellow citizen? I just don’t see it that way.

Otherwise we go the American route and end up fighting amongst ourselves.

If it’s between the parents and the victim, then our government has failed us.

Religious freedom can go suck a dick when it harms other people.

According to the Church of the JustPulledANewReligionOutOfMyAss, our Chief Papa Ghost said I need to break your kneecaps then push you onto a busy highway: your sacrifice is nothing personal, but if I don’t do it, I’ll spend eternity being spanked by fire goats. Doesn’t make sense to me either, but Chief Papa Ghost works in mysterious ways, so I don’t have a choice, you see? It’s my religion!

…except if I actually tried that, I’d spend the rest of my life in prison, cuz even religious freedom doesn’t give me the right to kill people ‘because God’.

At least not directly: I can still kill you without consequence by spreading a completely avoidable pathogen to you, but giving that scenario the “wtf?!” treatment is pretty much why OP made this thread, lol.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Chief Papa Ghost had a kid out of wedlock with a lower-dimensional being, and it just so happens that he’s made of BBQ twist Fritos and Rootbeer, so I’m gonna go commune.

We are not litigious as Canadians, but maybe we should be in this aspect.

While I subscribe to that same kind of thinking, others will not. They will see it as being forced to share the rewards of their hard work with others who, in their opinion, didn’t work as hard. Put another way, they see themselves as having taken on the responsibility of caring and providing for themselves, and policies like that would force them to also care for someone else who isn’t meeting that responsibility.

It’s a simple take, but not completely wrong. There will be people who will take advantage of others generosity, shirking the responsibility to care and provide for themselves, and keep demanding more. And there’s also the reality of government waste and corruption siphoning that “hard work” away.

It ignores the many realities out there, like how not everyone gets the same starting point in life and not everyone has the same abilities. But its simplicity is its strength. It explains things in a way that is easy to understand. I worked hard, they didn’t. I didn’t get handouts when I was struggling, so why should they.

This is why I think the way to convince these people to do the right thing is to reward those who do vaccinate with a tax credit or payout. It makes it fair across the board, and makes those who still choose not to vaccinate understand the cost of that choice. Or at least see that there is a cost to the choice.

A study, that could give a hard number of the average cost per patient, broken down by vaccinated and unvaccinated, could go a long way to proving the point. The recent measles outbreak would be a great place to start.

The most disturbing thing about reality is that we have morons opting their children and neighbors into preventable diseases because of absurd lies they read on Facebook.

Where do you draw the line ?

Also how do you sue/prove the 4th grader’s parents when a kindergartner catches measles. Maybe it was the kid down the street who spread it.

Probably better to strip them of their free Heath care and bill them for extra costs.

Actuaries love sorting out probable numbers by statistical groups

Parents who don’t vaccinate their children without a good medical reason should be treated as any other parent who intentionally abuses, harms, mistreats, or abandons their children, simple as that.

If they harm other people on top of that, then that should probably count as attempted murder plus aggravated assault and battery, or some equivalent.

It’s a shame that rampant wilful idiocy with intent to cause harm and mayhem isn’t a criminal offence, though, because they should also be charged with that.

Fun fact: ancient religious texts don’t have shit to say about modern medical practices.

You know, we eliminated smallpox in the wild, and mostly eliminated polio, by giving vaccines. Fuck these moronic idiotic parents not vaxxing their kiddos. It ABSOLUTELY should count as child abuse to not vax your kid.

If the other kid is vaccinated, shouldn’t they stay healthy instead?

You keep them out of public schools to reduce the chance of them exposing other people as much as possible. Their co-religionists aren’t likely to press charges, and many of these extreme religious groups don’t want their kids in mainstream schools anyway.

In other words, you can use government-funded schools or you can refuse vaccination (and pay for your kids to attend a private school that allows unvaccinated students, or homeschool them and do the work yourself). You can’t have both. That’s how school vaccine mandates are supposed to work in the first place. We’ve just gotten way too lax about upholding and enforcing them.

Nah. It’s not concerning that otherwise intelligent people can’t figure out how to deal with their own lives without resorting to controlling others.

Are you an anti-vaxxer?

Felony murder, in my opinion.

Its impossible to prove you caught an airborne disease from a specific individual.

There are a few considerations to make regarding the thought process of “if the other kid is vaccinated, then they should stay healthy,” even when exposed to illnesses that they are vaccinated for.

(1) Vaccines are not 100% effective. In the case of the Measles vaccine it is estimated to be 93-97% effective – this is a very effective vaccine. So, if someone is vaccinated, then yes, they likely will stay healthy even if they are exposed to a case of the Measles.

(2) Not everyone can be vaccinated for medical reasons whether it is due to allergies to something in the vaccine or another medical issue. So, these people are forced to rely on what is called herd immunity (everyone who can be vaccinated around them is vaccinated, so the virus or bacteria will not be around to infect the unvaccinated person). Unfortunately, for herd immunity to work specifically for the Measles scientists believe that 95% of the population needs to be immune to stop its spread. This is because the Measles is extremely spreads extremely easily – about 90% of people who are not immune to Measles will become ill when they are exposed to the Measles.

(3) The last point that I will make is that if a pathogen (virus or bacteria) is allowed to circulate in the population due to low vaccine uptake, then there is a stronger likelihood that the pathogen will mutate (change) to get around the protection of the vaccine. Then nobody is protected and scientists get the fun of trying to create a new vaccine for the mutated version.

Take what I say here with a grain of salt since I am not an immunologist, physician, or scientist. I just like to know the pros and cons of vaccines as well as how best to protect myself, my family, and my friends from preventable illnesses. I learned a lot of this information by talking to my doctor, reading from medical journals (Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Immunology, etc.), and also checking major medical center internet sites for information such as Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, MassGeneral, etc. There is a lot of excellent information to be had from our scientific community to help make an informed choice - much of what I located was open and free to the public to read.

Thanks, appreciate the write-up! I’m just wondering that myself, my question wasn’t meant as an anti-vax post.

Not an antivaxxer, but that sounds difficult to prove. Even for mere liability, how would you demonstrate on a balance of probabilities that someone got sick specifically because someone else didn’t vaccinate?

(Also I really hope small-claims court isn’t the appropriate avenue for trying something as serious as infecting a child with measles)