The Complicated Game of Vaccination ‘Choice’

Florida Surgeon Gen. Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, left, speaks at a news conference with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, right, Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

As a public health major and long-time enthusiastic vaccine supporter, I share the concerns of many following the recent news of Florida attempting to remove vaccine mandates for school children. The central argument of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo—those pushing for this change—is that the government should not be making the choice for what goes into the bodies of its constituents. These propositions come despite the fact that vaccine mandates are shown to lower incidence of outbreaks and disease.

One Reel commenting on the issue caught my attention, and I believe it deserves dissection. In the video, the creator pushes back on a popular sentiment buzzing around the news from Florida: that such lawmakers and anti-vax parents will get what's coming to them, and any diseases that they contract will be their own fault. 

She says, “Unfortunately, I’m going to be the too woke friend here…Guys, those are children.” 

The implication of her statement being that the children and infants in question have no choice in being vaccinated or not. She continues her discussion about the dangers of children being unvaccinated and the fact that the parents making these choices are largely vaccinated themselves, and therefore protected from the diseases their children will be susceptible to. Diseases that are unlikely to stay within Florida state lines if allowed to spread due to a growing unvaccinated population. 

I largely agree with her opinion—until the end of the video when she states: “These are children who aren’t going to be vaccinated because their parents are idiots.” 

It’s possible she is referring to lawmakers pushing these changes who may be parents themselves. But are regular parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their children actually idiots?

These words take the debate in the wrong direction. Consistent with a plethora of laws, the United States government allows parents to raise their children as they see fit, refraining from overstepping into the private lives of families except in the case of great danger or harm to the children. 

This has been true for vaccination as well. This map shows which states allow vaccine exemptions for medical, religious or personal beliefs as of 2023. Florida is shown to allow medical and religious exemptions, so it is unclear why the state lawmakers felt it necessary to remove all mandates instead of perhaps adding exemptions for personal beliefs. Wouldn’t this protect the choice of parents just as well?

It is clear that this is because Florida does not care about the issue of vaccination being one of parental choice. Rather, this is a problem of political influence. According to this BBC article, the Florida Surgeon General “likened the mandates to ‘slavery,’ in announcing the plans.” Such inflammatory language expands the problem of vaccination from one of public health to a political attack on the idea of vaccine requirements generally. 

Removing vaccine mandates may simply be a radical political statement regarding the importance of “choice,” but this removal mandate will harm more than just the unvaccinated. It has been suggested that this could cause a lack of access to vaccines, or a higher cost for those who want them. Parents who do want to vaccinate, then, may have less of a choice than Florida would like you to believe. 

Many will likely opt not to vaccinate because they trust the government that says they don’t need to. Instead of giving parents a choice, which allowing personal exemptions would do, Florida is sending a message that parents need not even consider vaccinating. The state corrupts the trust its citizens put in them, going against the medical consensus that strongly favors vaccination. 

Parents are not idiots. They want to protect their children and may trust the government to help them in doing so. However, those with children who have medical conditions barring their vaccination eligibility rely on herd immunity for protection. Of course, these parents have no choice in the matter.

So, Florida’s removal of vaccine mandates is a matter of choice: the choice of Florida state lawmakers to put a political agenda ahead of the health of Floridians and Americans, and above the protection of children who have no choice. 

As the vaccine debate once again ramps up, criticisms should be focused upon those lawmakers, and not at well-meaning parents and children, who may have less choice than we are led to believe.