If it can be proven. Yes. But there are too many variables to be able to prove it usually.

Yeah, honestly you are an anti-vaxxer if your personal feelings (or crackpot theories) negatively affect your perception of vaccine science even slightly. What you’re expressing here is an idea that has killed countless people and it will only get worse. Everyone should thank you for bringing back measles though, because your valiant freedom fighting “helped” us in that way.

I’m personally of the opinion that refusing to vaccinate your kids should not be a choice parents get to make. Just like how you can’t choose to starve your children, no matter how deeply and truly you believe that we can draw all our necessary sustenance from the air.

In Canada we have a legal concept called the “Duty of persons to provide necessaries.”

Here’s the relevant legal code:

215 (1) Every one is under a legal duty (a) as a parent, foster parent, guardian or head of a family, to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years;

Failing to Provide the Necessaries of Life (Offence) - Criminal Law Notebook

(www.criminalnotebook.ca)

I firmly believe that vaccinations should be deemed one of the “necessaries of life” under this article of the criminal code. Like food, water, clothing, shelter, etc. You shouldn’t have a choice in this matter. We shouldn’t even be talking about whether or not that choice harms someone else’s kid, because that’s actually beside the point. At a basic level, we as a society have already agreed that children’s right to be properly sheltered and cared for outweighs their parents rights to decide how they live. The idea that there should be an exception for vaccines - something that can mean the difference between life and death - is absolutely ridiculous.

To put it simply, pathogens are like roach infestations. You can do everything in your power to keep your apartment clean and tidy and bug free, but if your neighbour’s apartment is a spawning ground for the little shits, sooner or later they’re going to make their way in no matter what you do.

It takes everyone, working together, to make us all safe from deadly diseases. That’s how herd immunity works.

Completely agree. I said more in my own comment, but if you’re interested, here’s the relevant criminal code that backs up what you’re saying; https://www.criminalnotebook.ca/index.php/Failing_to_Provide_the_Necessaries_of_Life_(Offence)

No, we can’t start throwing out burden of proof when it suits us.

I’ve argued elsewhere in this thread that the solution is to obligate parents to provide vaccinations, just like they’re obligated to provide food, water, clothing, shelter, etc. This is the basic legal duty of care that all parents have towards their children, and it should extend to vaccines. This is both a logical application of existing law - rather than requiring new law - and incredibly simple to prove in court. If parents are obligated to vaccinate their kids, all a cop or social worker has to do is ask for the proof of vaccination. There’s no balance of proof to consider, and no knotty problems of untangling exactly how someone else’s kid got sick.

Anyone have tips on how to not get stabbed without forcing other people to stop stabbing?

Crackpot theories… …like… … how evolution works? …or how regressive evolution works?

Diseases have killed countless people, and we have multiple vectors (and should have multiple vectors) for addressing them.

We have technology, as in vaccines. This is a good thing.

We have social behaviors including social pressure (which is, unfortunately, often compulsive and not well-aimed by the people that exercise it, but such is life).

We have individual immunity, and the direct biological pressure for health and general genetic robustness, which is also a good thing, even though it kills some of us.

the cool thing is, we’re now at a point where there are lots of anti-vaxxers who are totally willing to throw their lives away for the benefit of the species. …and, their surviving genetic lines and the rest of the species, as their children interbreed with the rest of humanity, will be better off for it. That’s true, whether you like it or not. It’s also true that forcing vaccination rather than simply providing and incentivizing vaccination is a terribly, terribly flawed strategy which causes far more issues than it fixes.

I understand that you’re making social-pressure arguments, and that they are valid in the context you’re in. But they aren’t the end-all be-all, and they’re not fundamentally scientific (or even logical) just because you’re trying to support science by using them.

I also know this whole conversation brings up tons of uncomfortable topics, for which I’ll probably get yelled at. I just don’t care, because being more forceful about an argument, or getting the last word, really has no bearing on the truth of that word.

I think there are a few issues:

1. How do you prove kid A gave kid B measels?

2. Why isn’t kid B vaccinated? Because they don’t need to be, group immunity. Well that is no longer true with anti vax so…

3. Kid B then gives kid C measels, so kid B’s parents are now liable.

4. Your in small claims court. You have to prove damages. So you’re going for loss of earning for an adult looking after the kid + pain and suffering. Is that payout going to be worth filing papers, legal advice etc.

You’d be better passing a law to mandate vaccines, but that won’t be politically viable.

Just my thoughts - am not Canadian.

Failing to Provide the Necessaries of Life

I’m not fluent in legalese, but that seems about right, yes.

I reject societal contracts that do not support individual and body sovereignty. Of course, you can do with that as you will, because… …well… …sovereignty. Just know that if you take body sovereignty from people in one area, you empower the government to make decisions about your body, as well.

…and as we all have seen, the benevolence of the government is largely dependent on what party is in power, and what societal dynamics are in play. it’s… …unreliable, at best.

I literally called it, the day Democrats started pushing forced vaccinations, that the Republicans would go for reversal of abortion law. …and they fucking did, and they fucking succeeded in many ways, and that is direct consequence of permitting the government to violate body sovereignty, even when the voiced arguments do not pertain to it.

So, you can have your contiguous society, with forced social contracts rather than ones people actually are willing to agree to. …and you’ll also have the consequences, whether or not you can cognize how bad that will be right now.

Bacteria and viruses spread. It’s what they do. We need a way to adapt to them. Vaccines are good, being healthy probably helps more. What we need is real food, housing and health care and education. Instead we have arguments about vaccines. Sad really.

Even if the child dies, withholding a vaccine would have to be made illegal. You need to be committing a felony first, someone dies, then get charged with felony murder.

You’re welcome!

Because we have loser pays laws for civil suits.