Article content continued

Now, with vaccine hesitancy a growing concern worldwide, a leading ethicist is asking a provocative question: If parents won’t vaccinate their children, should the state do it for them?

“I want to point out a moral stance that I don’t think has gotten enough attention and that is that every child has the right to be vaccinated,” Arthur Caplan, founding director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center said in a recent video commentary posted on Medscape.

“We keep talking about parents’ rights to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ to avoid mandates or requirements, or do what they choose to do. But a child can’t protect himself or herself against measles, or the flu,” he said.

I want to point out a moral stance that I don’t think has gotten enough attention and that is that every child has the right to be vaccinated

“Someone has to speak up and say, ‘Well, what about the kids? Don’t they have any rights?’”

Tens of thousands of children in the U.S. and Europe are being denied vaccinations because of misinformation about their safety and parents who still cling to the “canard” vaccines cause autism, Caplan said.

“If someone comes in and says they don’t want their child taken care of by western medicine when they have diabetes or meningitis, we go to court and overrule their refusal, because we know (children) have a right to live,” he said. “They have a chance at life like anybody else. Why not take the same attitude toward vaccination?”

Photo by Luke Hendry/The Intelligencer/QMI Agency

In Canada, one tenth of children are now going unvaccinated, meaning about 750,000 young Canadians have no immunity whatsoever against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and measles.