Author Archives: meganf

Last January a bill, H.R. 492, was proposed in the House that aimed to require women to “receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving consent to receive an abortion”. While abortion has been legal since 1973, there are still pushes to enact bills that threaten the right of women to be allowed their privacy in deciding to get an abortion. The issue of regulating abortion should be left in the private sphere, it does not threaten anyone’s freedom to life, liberty, and property. By invading the privacy of the woman by  forcing her to undergo an ultrasound before she is allowed to have an abortion, you are in turn impeding on her right to privacy.

One of our rights afforded in the state of nature is liberty, which I will relate to privacy. In the principle of personal liberty, the decisions one is afforded to make based on their standing in the state of nature, privacy is afforded as a right of every individual. The right of privacy is rooted in removing ourselves from the naturally occurring state of nature, to the chosen state of living inside a government. This government’s ruling is to make a better whole, and by ensuring that we have privacy, we are ensuring a better society and government in turn.

With this understanding of personal liberty, we can see that there should not be any regulations on a woman’s choice to an abortion, because it concerns only the woman and not the rest of the society in this decision. When a woman receives an abortion, she is choosing to end the pregnancy that is happening in her body, which is a completely private matter. This concerns no other member of society other than the mother, and should be treated as a private matter rested in the decision of the mother.Thus, any regulation placed on abortion is unfounded, because it should be treated as a private issue and should not be the concern of the government.

While bill H.R. 492 gained a good deal of attention at it’s unveiling, there are plenty of other similar bills that have been proposed before, with disastrous results. Republicans in Virginia proposed a mandatory ultrasound bill involving an invasive transvaginal procedure. And just a week before HR492 was introduced, House Republicans had to cancel a vote on a bill that aimed at banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with extremely narrow rape exceptions. We have seen time and again that outrage that comes with attempting to place regulations on abortions, because they are in the private sphere and should not be brought into the public sphere of legislature.

In the case of the mandatory ultrasound bill that would require that women “receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving informed consent to receive an abortion”(Bassett), this bill clearly infringes on the personal liberty of the woman seeking an abortion because it interferes in the personal liberty afforded to the woman, and seeks to interrupt her decision to receive an abortion. The government has no right to infringe and regulate abortions, there is no precedent for these practices to be required. It is in the hands of the woman alone to decide the parameters of her pregnancy, because it does not affect anyone but her and should be regarded as a private issue.

Based on my aforementioned principle that abortion rights are a private issue, for the government to place regulations on abortion would go beyond the boundary of law, to tyranny.

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/mandatory-ultrasound-_n_6535076.html

On April 1, 2016, Vaxxed premiered. It was a documentary aimed at proving the science behind the anti-vaccination movement that has gained popularity over the past 20 years. However, their science has been conclusively debunked, and the anti-vaccination movement puts others at risk. Not vaccinating your child is a public issue because it infringes on the freedom of that child and others, and needs to be discussed in the public sphere.

The issue of vaccinating children is a public issue because in the case that a parent chooses not to have their child vaccinated, they are potentially putting other people, children and adults, at risk for the diseases and viruses that they are not vaccinated for, thus violating mine and others freedom set forth by the laws of nature. Every person, when they submit to being governed are granted several rights that cannot be violated, their right to life, liberty and property.Those who choose not to vaccinate their children are infringing on the freedom of everybody else in society to remain safe within a reasonable degree. In going from a state of nature to a state of submitting to a government for the overall well being of the society, there are still some aspects that we are afforded as we are in the state of nature. One of these is the right to freedom, and while some may argue that means the freedom to choose whether or not to vaccinate their child, I argue that their choosing not to infringes on my freedom.

Under the laws of the governed, it is mandated that parents care for their children until they are old enough and mature enough to do it themselves. Parents have a responsibility as members of society to keep their children healthy under the law, until they can do so for themselves. Every parent in the state of being governed has the duty to keep their children safe in their formative years. I argue that vaccinating their child is a vital duty of the parents in relating this duty to keep their child safe until that child can do so themselves.

It is also worth mentioning that there is no conclusive data that has proven concretely that not vaccinating children benefits the child. The movement against vaccination is scientifically inconclusive and has been debunked time and again. The movement towards anti-vaccination started in the 1870’s but reared it’s head again in 1990 when a doctor, Andrew Wakefield, wanted to research to look into the relationship between bowel disease, autism, and the MMR vaccine. Since then, however, most of the claims that the anti-vaccination movement has made, such as their claim that vaccinations cause autism, have been debunked. This furthers my point that vaccination is a public issue not only because it relates to other people’s freedoms, but that we have no conclusive evidence that not vaccinating has any positive outcomes.

Vaccination is a public issue. It concerns the ability of one’s right to life, liberty, and happiness to be unnecessarily subjected to illnesses that can be easily prevented.

Sources:

Image from https://mic.com/articles/85725/7-biggest-lies-spread-by-the-anti-vaccine-movement-debunked-by-science#.uVrYi9NJghttp://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movementshttp://www.voicesforvaccines.org/growing-up-unvaccinated/

http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements

http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/growing-up-unvaccinated/