Argumentative Paper 2021
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MANDATORY VACCINATIONS
DANA CLARKE
COLLEGE OF NURSING, CHAMBERLAIN UNIVERSITY
PHIL 347: CRITICAL REASONING
SONJA SHEFFIELD
DECEMBER 12, 2021
2021
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Mandating vaccinations is not a new controversy in the healthcare field. This debate has continued on for many years and the ethics behind mandatory healthcare can be argued. However, mandates such as the legislation behind seatbelts or no smoking indoors has proven to significantly improve the health and wellbeing of the population. Mandatory vaccines should be pushed in legislation immediately to best support and help the masses. In today’s society, despite
the opinion of many, covid-19 vaccinations are not the first time our society has seen mandates on immunizations in recent years. In order for our society to achieve her immunity, a majority of the population must be vaccinated. To aid the masses in healthcare, is it morally sound and ethically right to mandate vaccinations in our “free” society.
When it comes to healthcare, a very prevalent topic that applies to everyone is bodily autonomy. In regards to the topic of mandatory vaccinations, bodily autonomy is very important.
This topic can be very controversial. Who has the right to what parts of their body as well as who
can define what is and is not allowed in regards to bodily autonomy in the work place or hospital? Bodily autonomy is a civil liberty that is often forgotten about or taken for granted until
and thus in times of community crisis, must by forsaken. Although it is our civil liberties such as bodily autonomy that make us a free nation, being chained to the fear of becoming sick when illness surrounds us takes away our freedom (Cole, 2021). A person has a right to decide what to do with their own body. We cannot go door to door and force anyone to get a vaccine or tell them how or what to do with their own bodies. However, just because society cannot dictate what to do with your body in a “free nation” such as America, does not mean you are entitled to certain liberties that may require vaccinations. College, eating out at a restaurant, going to the movie theaters, even having a job are all privileges not rights. This is where this topic often becomes very controversial. Pandemics such as the coronavirus and epidemics such as the
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reoccurring prevalence of the measles, forces figures of authority to enact their duty to the masses and write strict legislation that does not infringe on bodily autonomy but does not give the unvaccinated or those who do not following the medical guidelines the right to attend business or work in healthcare without proper exemptions such as medical conditions or religious reasoning (Grzybowski et all, 2017). Healthcare workers are already required in most places to be vaccinated against communicable and non-communicable diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. These diseases can be proven to be detrimental to the health of an immunocompromised patient in healthcare. Healthcare workers also understand that their duty is to the patient and to ensure that no further harm is done while in
their care. This includes not spreading diseases such as the ones listed above. Therefore, bodily autonomy is not infringed in this aspect as healthcare workers are not forced to work in this field.
In regards to healthcare and healthcare mandates, there are many debates and written legislation on what is ethical and what is not. Medical ethics refers to the debate on what is morally right or wrong in healthcare decisions, treatment, and diagnostics. Mandating anything, medical or not, requires reasoning to be sound and well thought out and established. Although on
a smaller scale, mandating vaccinations may seem unethical, when it comes down to the continuation of the population, mandating vaccinations where does one draw the line? Is it more ethical to give society bodily autonomy and the right to make their own decision while maintaining their privileges in society or to maintain the health and safety of the masses by mandating vaccinations for public places? Many think that it is more ethical to give society bodily autonomy. While this is not entirely inaccurate in this viewpoint on medical ethics, the line must be drawn in order for the continuation of our population (John et all, 2021). Mandates
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on immunizations attempt to protect society by means of the principle of ethics stating to “do no harm” (Ricci et all, 2021). The global pandemic of Covid-19 has drastically and permanently changed the publics’ view on vaccinations. According to an article in Frontiers in Public Health
, the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to not only become educated in the subject of vaccinations, immunizations, and healthcare, but also to become immunized against preventable diseases (Syan et all, 2021). The topic of mandatory vaccinations in public businesses as well as in the career field of healthcare is about as controversial a topic as possible in recent months. When vaccines for the coronavirus were first rolled out, the public seemed thrilled that they would finally be receiving a sense of normalcy in public. As time went on however, the public was being targeted to get vaccinated themselves. Businesses and local government offered incentives to “help your neighbor” by getting vaccinated. With the push on vaccines, the public became more and more hesitant and started to refuse the vaccine altogether, which halted our chances of herd immunity (Fridman et all, 2021). The public turned to social media outlets to receive news and read articles on the vaccine. This became detrimental to the vaccine fallout because the more
fake or non-peer reviewed articles that came out about the virus, the less likely people were to become vaccinated. Facebook became a source of misinformation and created more hesitancy and distaste for mandatory vaccines. More than ever, people wanted bodily autonomy and a right
to refuse care in regards to the vaccine (Fridman at all, 2021). The global pandemic or Covid-19 has drastically changed the public’s opinion on vaccines in a negative way for the most part due to the fact that many less educated or uneducated individuals in society have started a movement of needing bodily autonomy and a right to refuse care. Instead of seeing mandating vaccines as well as wearing masks in public when sick as helping to slow or stop the spread of
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communicable diseases and illness, society sees this as an infringement on their right. In the same sense our society sees gun regulations and mandates as an infringement on their constitutional right. Legislation does not want to take away society’s guns, they just want to ensure the safety of the masses by regulating who should be allowed to have guns and how guns should be required to be stored. This is what mandating vaccinations is attempting to do as well. Mandating immunizations and vaccinations in both a public sense and in regards to healthcare, is
to help the continuation of our society. Life expectancy means nothing without quality of life. Mandating vaccinations helps to ensure that fewer people end up on a ventilator or with comorbidities from preventable conditions such as covid-19. Mandating vaccinations is a very controversial topic in society recently. The public has cried in outrage from legislation mandating public safety in the past as well. Legislation such as mandatory seatbelts for children and passengers as well as banning smoking in public places indoors, were for the health and wellbeing of the public and to ensure the continuation of safety and the human population. These were small steps that made many people upset but had huge impacts on safety. In this regard, vaccine mandates have and will have a huge positive impact on the safety and health of members of society with an emphasis on the immunocompromised, elderly, and young. Mandating vaccinations does not infringe on bodily autonomy as public places as well as working in healthcare are privileges not rights. This also means that the decision to make vaccines mandatory is not considered unethical as it aids in the health and continuation of our society. Mandating vaccinations is a necessary step in order to ensure our population does not continue the preventable spread of diseases that otherwise could wreak havoc on our population.
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References:
Cole, D. (2021). Civil Liberties and Vaccine Mandates; Here’s Our Take. ACLU
. https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/civil-liberties-and-vaccine-mandates-heres-our-
take/
Fridman, A., Gershon, R., Gneezy, A. (2021). Covid-19 and vaccine hesitancy: A longitudinal study. PLOS One.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250123
Grzybowski, A., Patryn, R. K., Sak, J., & Zagaja, A. (2017). Vaccination refusal. Autonomy and permitted coercion. NIH National Library of Medicine.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28486849/
John, P., Heith, K., Johnson, E., & Gaeta, M. (2021). Ethical Consideration for Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate. Society of Critical Care Medicine. https://www.sccm.org/Blog/June-
2021/Ethical-Considerations-for-a-COVID-19-Vaccine-Mand
Ricci, M. J., & Amorim, F. (2021). Ethical and Practical Considerations Surrounding Mandatory Vaccinations. Infection Control Today.
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/ethical-and-practical-considerations-
surrounding-mandatory-vaccination
Syan, S. K., Gohari, M. R., Levitt, E. E., Belisario, K., Gillard, J., DeJesus, J., & MacKillop, J. (2021). Covid-19 Vaccine Perceptions and Differences by Sex, Age, and Education in 1, 367 Community Adults in Ontario. Frontiers in Public Health.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.719665/full
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