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Should parents who refuse childhood vaccines be liable if their choice harms someone else’s kid? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Canada just lost its measles-free status. So here’s the question..

If an unvaccinated child spreads measles to someone else’s kid, why shouldn’t the parents be liable in small-claims court?

I’m not talking about criminal charges, just basic responsibility. If your choice creates the risk you should have to prove you weren’t the reason someone else’s child got sick.

Is that unreasonable?

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[–] -5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It opens some weird ideas to the game. If you are unvaccinated, yet previously had the illness and recovered, do you need a vaccine. What if you've been vaccinated and still spread it. What if you can't have the vaccines because if of health conditions. Anger does not fix the problem. We need a compromise, not a rule.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Kids shouldn’t be getting measles in the first place. No measles, no problems you described. No anger here.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    I mean, from a simple enforcement perspective "prove that you're vaxxed" runs into the same problem as "prove that you're a legal resident".

    Access to health care, access to documentation of that health care, and the ability to produce it on demand all require certain amenities that marginalized people don't have. It's a rule that inevitably penalizes people for being poor.

    Shy of getting people chipped and slotting your medical records into the same system that we use for criminal enforcement, the folks enforcing the laws will default to the assumption that you're at fault until you can prove otherwise.

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