MANDATORY VACCINATION IS AN ASSAULT ON INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY

By Attorney Jonathan Emord
October 12, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

Public health services nationwide and the Secretary of HHS are sounding the alarm that the H1N1 virus (swine flu) may kill many Americans and infect tens of thousands of others. Many scientists who study the H1N1 virus believe the authorities have exaggerated the extent of infection and risk associated with it. Underlying this entire debate is the stark reality that federal and state officials are gearing up to compel Americans to be vaccinated. That compulsion is part of an historic assault on liberty, where the state demands that healthy people be injected with foreign substances that may cause (and indeed have caused) severe side effects.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC.org) monitors adverse events associated with vaccinations as does the Food and Drug Administration. Among the ill effects caused by vaccines are contraction of the disease for which vaccination is administered, learning disorders, seizures, mental retardation, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disorders, and even death.

Every state mandates that children be injected with a whole host of vaccines before they enter kindergarten (for diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (DTap); polio; measles; mumps; rubella; varicella (chickenpox); conjugate pneumococcus (PCV); hepatitis B; rotavirus; haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib); measles, mumps, rubella (MMR); hepatitis A; and meningococcal (MCVt), not to mention a host of new vaccines required in certain states, including one for the human papilloma virus (Gardasil)). Parents who dissent from the requirement that their children be injected meet with disfavor not only from their pediatricians but also from the authorities who may even construe the refusal to vaccinate as evidence of child abuse or neglect. An allegedly abusive or neglectful parent can lose custody of a child, at least temporarily, to permit the state to vaccinate them forcibly.

Under federal laws adopted post 9/11, the Secretary of HHS can declare a national emergency and order all citizens to be vaccinated. These extreme powers can permit agents of the federal government to enter private residences to compel those inside to receive vaccinations.

Let there be no mistake mandatory vaccination is an assault on individual liberty. It offends the core definition of liberty that underlies our Constitution for a person, against his or her will, to be forcibly injected with a foreign substance. Sadly neither the federal nor the state governments provide any meaningful protection against mandatory vaccination. Instead, it is the rule of law everywhere in this country that everyone be vaccinated, thus subjecting the vast majority to a bodily intrusion that can have severe side effects for the sake of a minority who are or will become ill. The few exemptions that apply under state law (for religious, medical, and—in certain states—conscientious objections) are increasingly construed narrowly, making it more difficult for parents to escape the demands of public health authorities.

Properly understood, liberty is an inalienable right that may not be deprived of those who have not transgressed against the equal rights of others. Our Declaration of Independence reminds us that just governments are instituted among men to protect the rights of the governed, including the right of liberty. Our Bill of Rights protects liberty against the federal and state governments in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In his April 4, 1819 letter to Isaac H. Tiffany, Thomas Jefferson perhaps best defined “rightful libertyâ€