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The right not to die of disease (were it to exist) would be a statutory right and not a fundamental one. I'd rather discuss fundamental rights which are a very

The right not to die of disease (were it to exist) would be a statutory right and not a fundamental one. I'd rather discuss fundamental rights which are a very different thing than the shopping list that is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But I'll go one step further. Children have no fundamental right to even seek a vaccine independent of their mother and father. If they did, the tanks would be rolling into Lancaster County right now.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> I'd rather discuss fundamental rights... You're in luck, then; SCOTUS has deemed even compulsory vaccination to pass muster here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts We've got plenty of precedent that parents can't always opt out of life-saving care for their children, too. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/connecticut-teen-curable-cancer-must-continue-chemo-court-n282421 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/connecticut-teen-curab... > Children have no fundamental right to even seek a vaccine independent of their mother and father. If they did, the tanks would be rolling into Lancaster County right now. Are the children of Lancaster County pushing to be vaccinated and being denied by their parents?
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago
  Compulsory vaccination statutes don't imply anything about whether a toddler has the fundamental inherent right to wander the neighborhood looking for immunizing material. I don't know why you brought it up. Vaccines are not life-saving care by any definition. Not least of all because it does not cure or treat disease. I believe it's even illegal for a doctor to tell a patient otherwise. So this, too, is irrelevant. >Are the children of Lancaster County pushing to be vaccinated and being denied by their parents? Presumably they're pushing to do a whole lot of things. Not least of all staying up past bedtime.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > Compulsory vaccination statutes don't imply anything about whether a toddler has the fundamental inherent right... They do demonstrate a pretty clear scenario where some rights is trumped by other things. We are discussing a potential such scenario; parents' rights versus a child's opting to get a vaccine that's most effective if administered as a minor. > Vaccines are not life-saving care by any definition. Not least of all because it does not cure or treat disease. Sure they can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine is a good example of a vaccine frequently administered while infected to treat a disease. Even without those, "not getting cancer" seems pretty clearly life-saving at a population level. > Presumably they're pushing to do a whole lot of things. Not least of all staying up past bedtime. A dodge. To be clear: if an Amish child wanted to get vaccinated, and their parents forbade it, I'd want our legal system to side with the child.
    - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
      The comment which started this was implying that parental rights (in scare quotes) fell to the rights of children. All of your arguments focus on community rights and democratic power overcoming parental rights, something which is beside the point. If it requires democratic power and doesn't apply universally (spatially and temporally), even within that particular jurisdiction, it can hardly be said to be merely the recognition of a child's fundamental right. And the article you linked says that the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that "[a] 17-year-old Connecticut girl with a highly curable cancer is not mentally competent to make her own medical decisions" (emphasis mine). Also, your arguments about landmark cases in which state power overcame parental rights in rare situations would tend to demolish the idea that parental rights are some fringe legal and philosophical movement cooked up by anti-vaxxers, which is the implication which began this thread. Especially because the court recognizes the existence of parental rights even while ruling to override them. Additionally, the purported legitimacy of being forcibly vaccinated by the state would demolish any bodily autonomy argument which could be made to assert a child's right to vaccinate. >Sure they can A dodge. If there are theraputic vaccines (arguably a contradiction in terms), then they are legally distinguishible from non-theraputic ones. The original comment (about "parental rights") was clearly referring to this particular non-theraputic HPV vaccine and others like it. Let's stay on topic. >A dodge. To be clear I don't think it's at all illegitmate to presume that at least one Amish child in the history of Amish children has desired a vaccine and was told no by his or her parents. Throw in literally every other similarly-situated religious group and we're talking about a significant number of people. If the right is truly fundamental, it's a right denied regardless of whether the child lawyered up and took it to the Supreme Court. The Amish community would be massacred Waco-style if there were even hints that this precious, fundamental right was being denied to children (if you may recall another child-protecting operation). That is, of course, assuming that anyone genuinely believed this right to exist. Which as a general matter they do not and never have. The fringe movement is the one putting parental rights in scare quotes and treating children as adults (except when in the womb, never there). So, in summary, people who put parental rights in scare quotes while asserting invented rights as a means to acquire access to children are indeed the reason for which civilization has developed the venerable age of consent law.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> I'd rather discuss fundamental rights... You're in luck, then; SCOTUS has deemed even compulsory vaccination to pass muster here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts We've got plenty of precedent that parents can't always opt out of life-saving care for their children, too. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/connecticut-teen-curable-cancer-must-continue-chemo-court-n282421 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/connecticut-teen-curab... > Children have no fundamental right to even seek a vaccine independent of their mother and father. If they did, the tanks would be rolling into Lancaster County right now. Are the children of Lancaster County pushing to be vaccinated and being denied by their parents?

iraqmtpizza 3y ago
Compulsory vaccination statutes don't imply anything about whether a toddler has the fundamental inherent right to wander the neighborhood looking for immunizing material. I don't know why you brought it up. Vaccines are not life-saving care by any definition. Not least of all because it does not cure or treat disease. I believe it's even illegal for a doctor to tell a patient otherwise. So this, too, is irrelevant. >Are the children of Lancaster County pushing to be vaccinated and being denied by their parents? Presumably they're pushing to do a whole lot of things. Not least of all staying up past bedtime.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Compulsory vaccination statutes don't imply anything about whether a toddler has the fundamental inherent right... They do demonstrate a pretty clear scenario where some rights is trumped by other things. We are discussing a potential such scenario; parents' rights versus a child's opting to get a vaccine that's most effective if administered as a minor. > Vaccines are not life-saving care by any definition. Not least of all because it does not cure or treat disease. Sure they can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_vaccines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine is a good example of a vaccine frequently administered while infected to treat a disease. Even without those, "not getting cancer" seems pretty clearly life-saving at a population level. > Presumably they're pushing to do a whole lot of things. Not least of all staying up past bedtime. A dodge. To be clear: if an Amish child wanted to get vaccinated, and their parents forbade it, I'd want our legal system to side with the child.
  - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
    The comment which started this was implying that parental rights (in scare quotes) fell to the rights of children. All of your arguments focus on community rights and democratic power overcoming parental rights, something which is beside the point. If it requires democratic power and doesn't apply universally (spatially and temporally), even within that particular jurisdiction, it can hardly be said to be merely the recognition of a child's fundamental right. And the article you linked says that the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that "[a] 17-year-old Connecticut girl with a highly curable cancer is not mentally competent to make her own medical decisions" (emphasis mine). Also, your arguments about landmark cases in which state power overcame parental rights in rare situations would tend to demolish the idea that parental rights are some fringe legal and philosophical movement cooked up by anti-vaxxers, which is the implication which began this thread. Especially because the court recognizes the existence of parental rights even while ruling to override them. Additionally, the purported legitimacy of being forcibly vaccinated by the state would demolish any bodily autonomy argument which could be made to assert a child's right to vaccinate. >Sure they can A dodge. If there are theraputic vaccines (arguably a contradiction in terms), then they are legally distinguishible from non-theraputic ones. The original comment (about "parental rights") was clearly referring to this particular non-theraputic HPV vaccine and others like it. Let's stay on topic. >A dodge. To be clear I don't think it's at all illegitmate to presume that at least one Amish child in the history of Amish children has desired a vaccine and was told no by his or her parents. Throw in literally every other similarly-situated religious group and we're talking about a significant number of people. If the right is truly fundamental, it's a right denied regardless of whether the child lawyered up and took it to the Supreme Court. The Amish community would be massacred Waco-style if there were even hints that this precious, fundamental right was being denied to children (if you may recall another child-protecting operation). That is, of course, assuming that anyone genuinely believed this right to exist. Which as a general matter they do not and never have. The fringe movement is the one putting parental rights in scare quotes and treating children as adults (except when in the womb, never there). So, in summary, people who put parental rights in scare quotes while asserting invented rights as a means to acquire access to children are indeed the reason for which civilization has developed the venerable age of consent law.