O.K. Parents should have the right to raise their kids as they see fit, right? We should be supportive of each others' choices. The kid who was sleep trained at four months is probably as likely to come out all right as the one who slept with his/her parents until age 4.
Fine. But when it comes to medical issues, I draw the line. In particular, people who refuse to vaccinate their children because of vague scare stories, and people who believe they can heal their children with the power of prayer, drive me right up a wall.
O.K., that latter story is just too ridiculous, and obviously has immediate tragic consequences. If your child is seriously ill, you take them to a doctor, schmucks. Pray all you like, but your child needs you to do what's best for them, not go off into la-la land. And la-la land it is, as this open letter from the family's pastor makes clear.
The day after I first spoke with the Neumanns they called me again from their car, very concerned as they followed an emergency vehicle with Kara in it. They told me that she had stopped breathing and asked if I would pray that The Lord would spare her and raise her up, which I did. I called on our prayer ministers and elders to pray for her too. The next thing I heard from them was that they were being investigated, which is sad since they don't investigate the people who put their trust in doctors whose family members die by the hundreds of thousands from medical mistakes every year, according the AMA's own admission. We know that the doctors do the best they can with what they have and we do not condemn them. We would like the same consideration.
O.K., so applying that same "logic" to other areas... sometimes people get seriously ill because they get food poisoning. Therefore, the logical thing to do is never buy food for our children, because they might get sick. After all, they put their trust in the food production industry!
The vaccination thing is a bit more subtle, because, after all, shots hurt, there are definitely side effects, serious ones in a few cases, and after all, most people don't get the illnesses anymore that the shots are meant to protect against.
To your average anti-vac person, It looks like the choice is "Gee, I could take my kid to the doctor and she'll get shots and scream and feel yucky, or even have something worse happen, or I could not get the shots, and she'll be fine!" But that's NOT the choice. The real choice is, "Take a tiny risk now, versus a larger risk of my child getting seriously ill from a contagious disease that could have been prevented, and others getting sick too." I have a relative who still lives with the after-effects of contracting polio as a child. I bet she wishes the vaccine had been around then.
Sure, some people cannot safely be vaccinated, whether because of allergies or serious immune system problems. All the more reason that the rest of us should take our shots, because then we can protect those who can't protect themselves. It's called herd immunity, people.
Is the medical system imperfect? Yes. Nobody should unquestioningly pop pills without doing some research. But vaccinations have been proven to work many times over the years -- perhaps too well. Are the plagues that killed children in previous centuries going to have to return to make that point?
Call me harsh and judgmental, but I firmly believe that people that won't seek medical treatment for their children, or refuse to vaccinate them, are, despite the best intentions that they have, acting selfishly. They are imposing their beliefs on their children -- which, while it may be their prerogative in other areas (dragging their kids to church, homeschooling or sending to Catholic school, making their kids listen to Billy Joel, etc.) in this case, it is in a way that is likely to do them long-term harm -- and possibly harm other people too.
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