Vaccination crackdown: Australia announces end to religious exemptions

[rug]

Remaining religious group, Christian Scientists, removed from exemption list and doctors incentive payments lifted under fresh push to lift vaccination rates



The Abbott government will give Australian doctors higher pay incentives for reminding parents to vaccinate their children. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Shalailah Medhora
Saturday 18 April 2015 20.07 EDT

Doctors will be given incentive payments so that parents stick to their children’s vaccination schedule, and the one religious exemption to vaccinations will end, as part of a push by the federal government to boost the immunisation rate.

Social services minister Scott Morrison on Sunday announced that the only religious group currently able to claim religious exemptions for vaccinations, Christian Scientists, will no longer be able to do so.

Morrison said the exemption, in place since 1998, “is no longer current or necessary and will therefore be removed”.

“Having resolved this outstanding matter, the government will not be receiving nor authorising any further vaccination exemption applications from religious organisations,” he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/vaccination-crackdown-australia-announces-end-to-religious-exemptions

[longship]

1. There are no rational arguments against vaccinations.

The only valid ones are based on medical issues.

Oz is doing a good thing here.

[cbayer]

2. What a mixed bag this is.

I can find no evidence that legitimate conscientious objection by christian scientists has been an issued in Australia and the numbers appear to be exceedingly small.

This is all do to the non-religious hysteria of the anti-vaxxer crowd who have now made it impossible to allow for any kind of exemption. The article also notes that complacency is a bigger issue than religious exemption.

[Promethean]

3. I think they are simply learning from observing what is happening outside their borders.

You know how previously eradicated diseases are suddenly reappearing. One person dead to a disease that shouldn't exist anymore is too many. I am glad Australia feels the same way.

[cbayer]

4. You are most likely correct, but unless someone has evidence to the contrary.

I do not believe that conscientious objection has in any way led to the reappearance of any of these diseases.

That has been due to the anti-vaxxer, anti-science hysteria.

While I think drawing a strong line in the sand for those people is the correct thing to do, I'm not comfortable with forcing those with longstanding conscientious objections to comply with this.

Should we have no exemptions for conscientious objection for other things?

[Promethean]

5. That is a complicated subject to fully tackle.

I do agree that conscientious objection should be a path legally available for a great many things. However I also stand firmly that the only beliefs that should be respected in any way, especially by law, are those based on reality.

So lets do a comparison. Vaccination had a real study put out at one point that said certain types of vaccines might be harmful. It even led to the vaccine producers changing the way they make some vaccines. The problem with anti-vaxxers is they ignore that the study was proven inaccurate and they ignore that the recipe was changed to remove the supposedly harmful component. Their reality based claim fell through but they still clung to it.

Religion doesn't even try to get reality based footing for its objection. Christian "science" is known for having the dogma that god will heal anything through prayer and teaches its followers to avoid modern medicine entirely. That is reason enough for me to say no, not good enough.

[cbayer]

6. Is conscientious objection to war "based on reality"?

I agree that if someone is making a decision not to vaccinate their children because they reject good science and have bought into some complete bogus BS about the dangers of vaccines, that's a big problem.

But if someone refuses all medical care because of their religious beliefs and not because they pick and choose where to reject the science, that's a different matter for me.

Christian scientists are not anti-vaxxers. They are in a different category. I do not feel it is our right to rip their beliefs away from them as long as they are not harming others. Who am I to judge them or their beliefs?

If there is evidence that they are harming others, that's a different matter, but apparently that's not the case.

I think it's important to be very careful where you tread when you support taking away people's rights. Yours could be next. All of us have things that we embrace that may not be scientifically based and your "reality" might not be the same as mine.

[Promethean]

9. There is evidence that they are harming others though.

It is very simple. First look at their teachings. In this case we will focus on their teaching to rely on faith for healing and to avoid medicine. This is obviously going to lead to an increase in suffering and lessening of the well-being of those who follow it. Now on to how they are hurting others. That is also easy. They are actively trying to convert others and have even succeeded in doing so, convincing people to follow this harmful dogma. Thus we have people who at one point were unharmed by christian science beliefs becoming harmed by them.

The only justification for tolerating this is the special privilege that religious ideas get. If a doctor refused to perform actual medicine and insisted instead that the patients perform a special chant, nobody would tolerate it. The doctor would be driven out of medicine and their reputation rightfully ruined. If religious people say avoid actual medicine and just perform special chants...I mean pray instead then their beliefs must be respected. I reject that religion deserves any automatic or special respect or tolerance. Bad ideas are bad ideas regardless of how you label them. Harmful ideas must be fought no matter what labels or forms they take.

As for the title of your post. Seriously? You need me to lay out for you the death and suffering that war brings? I am going to pretend you didn't say that because it is so horrific that it destroys your credibility completely.

[cbayer]

10. Your analysis is interesting but does not constitute evidence.

If someone chooses to not pursue certain kinds of medical care, the degree to which they experience an increase in suffering or a lessening of their own well being is really none of anyone else's business. Personally, I would reject a paternalistic system that forced everyone to pursue particular medical protocols, unless it was shown that they presented a risk to others if they rejected them.

In terms of conversion, do you think attempts to do so should be prohibited? Do you have any evidence that there are people who were unharmed by christian science beliefs becoming harmed by them?

When it comes to those who practice medicine, there simply is no analogy here. Medical practitioners are held to strict standards.

Fortunately you live in a place where you have the right to reject any religion you want. The corollary to that is written into our first amendment. People have the right to practice their religion. Be very careful where you tread in this area. Mucking around with one part might lead to erosions of the other. Allowing some people to decide which are the bad ideas and which are the good ideas when it comes to others beliefs is a very, very slippery slope.

I did not say that war did not bring death and suffering. I asked about conscientious objection and the scientific rationale for it. If you resort to ad homs, it is you who will completely lose your credibility.

[Promethean]

11. Ad hominems?

You are the one asking for a justification to objecting to death and suffering. That one should be such a no brainer that even asking is simply offensive. It also comes with the implication that a scientifically minded person (and myself specifically) doesn't have a "real" means of coming to the conclusion that death and suffering is objectionable. It is a backhanded way of saying "Atheist haz no morals" which I always take as an insult.

As for the rest of your post. I agree it is a difficult line to tread on saying what people can and cannot do. That is why I try at least to stick to the bad or harmful ideas aspect. If you are trying to spread harmful ideas, like avoid medicine, I support forcing you to stop. The "just pray for a miracle" belief seems to have a new example of how harmful it is showing up in the press quite often in recent times. For instance a group of Pentecostals that recently thought they could resurrect a starved child with super special and fervent prayer. The report said they were "genuinely surprised" when it didn't work. This is the kind of harm I think of when making these posts. The fact is if these people had relied on actual observable reality instead of magic there wouldn't be a dead child. This also isn't a single outlier event either. These tragedies are happening too often to just be a few crazy people who lost their heads.

[cbayer]

12. I'm not asking for justification for conscientious objection at all. I am supporting it.

Conscientious objection is a moral/ethical position that may also have a religious basis. I fully support it whether it comes to war or declining medical care. You don't get to make the decision about when it is ok and when it is not.

I have never and will never say that atheists have no morals. I do not believe that to be true in any way whatsoever.

I do not, on the other hand, think that morals are necessarily "based on reality", which is what you initially proposed as the criteria for making decisions about what is justified and what is not. They are very clearly based on beliefs, whether those be religious or otherwise.

Do you really advocate for forcing people from spreading "harmful ideas"? Who gets to decide which ideas are harmful and which are not?

I do agree that if there is clear evidence of harm, there is justification to act. But stopping the spread of ideas? Do you really want to go there?

See, this kind of thought control that is sometimes advocated buy those that are anti-religious is at least as frightening to me as the thought control advocated by some of the religious.

[struggle4progress]

7. ... Morrison said that after speaking to representatives from the Church of Christ, Scientist,

the one religious group that held an exemption, he had removed it. "Having been informed the religion is not advising members to avoid vaccinating their children... the government no longer sees that the exemption is current," Morrison said in a statement. "Having resolved this outstanding matter the government will not be receiving nor authorising any further vaccination exemption applications from religious organisations." Australia has vaccination rates of over 90 per cent for children aged one to five ...

Australia to boost child vaccination with $20m package
April 19, 2015
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/34cd997f-012e-4f45-bbd6-a5b1f22a3c95.aspx

[cbayer]

8. That's really important information and I thank you for finding it.

If accurate, then I think this is a reasonable move.