Sunday, February 11, 2007

"Protecting Life" -- At the Cost of Freedom

Texas Governor Rick Perry is attempting to defend his unilateral decision ordering young Texas schoolgirls to be immunized against a sexually transmitted disease which leads to cancer, saying that he is "protecting life."

Perry defends forcing parents to "opt out" of the vaccination, rather than "opt in," as more girls will thus be vaccinated. In doing so, he is deliberately making it more difficult for parents to personally make medical decisions concerning their minor children.

If we use Perry's "logic" requiring children to be vaccinated for a disease they will not catch in the classroom, what is to stop the governor from usurping other parental decisions in the interest of "protecting life"? This is a very slippery slope.

What's even more disturbing is that some parents are happy to turn their parental rights over to the state, rather than taking responsibility for making reasoned, informed decisions on their own. One mother is quoted as saying she likes that the new law will make it easy to explain the shot to her child: "If she wants to know why, it's because the state mandates it."

Big Brother lives, and some folks are, sadly, happy about it.

3 Comments:

Blogger Cathy said...

The first time I heard about this, was via a commercial.... I bought it!

My husband on the other hand... set me straight.

I am dumbfounded that parents would blindly go along with this without questioning. LITTLE GIRLS being immunized for a SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE--- LITTLE GIRLS!!!

Where is the outrage??

3:25 AM  
Blogger HeartInTennessee said...

Too bad it cannot be required that the state foots the bills for such state mandated vaccinations. At a cost of greater that $600 a piece for the Guardisil injection, I would sincerely doubt that the governor would be so quick to embrace his "cause?" if his own budget had to pay for it.

And IMHO, parents are so quick to hand over their parental rights because being a good parent is HARD WORK. And people just don't like hard work anymore. I can't count the number of times I have been told that "I could never give up my job and live on one income just to homeschool." My response is usually measured, but the truth is, if something is important to you, you are willing to do anything, sacrifice anything....to make it possible.

11:41 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

Thank you both for your comments...

HeartinTennessee, you make a good point. Some people just don't want to do the job. If you care and really want to do something, you can usually make it happen.

Best wishes,
Laura

11:57 AM  

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