Article Text
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to propose a middle ground in the debate over religious exemptions from measles vaccination requirements. It attempts to strike a balance between public health concerns on the one hand and religious objections on the other that avoids two equally serious errors: (1) making religious liberty an absolute and (2) disregarding religious beliefs altogether. Some think that the issue is straightforward: science has spoken and the benefits to public health outweigh any other concerns. The safety of the community, they say, demands that everybody be vaccinated so that measles outbreaks can be prevented, but such voices often ignore the freedom of religion, which is a mistake. Using Martha Nussbaum’s work on religious liberty, this paper claims that the exemptions should be preserved if a certain level of vaccination rates can be maintained.
- immunisation
- measles
- religious beliefs
- children
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Footnotes
Contributors GLB was the sole author of this article.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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