Certificate proposed for religious objections to vaccines

[rug]

Dan Petrella
52 min ago

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Department of Public Health is proposing new rules that would require parents who have religious objections to vaccinations to provide a special document to their children’s schools or child care facilities each year.

The department's rules to implement a law the General Assembly approved last year would establish a “certificate of religious exemption” for children whose parents don’t want them to be vaccinated on religious grounds.

The law requires a health care provider who has performed a child’s examination sign the certificate after reviewing with a parent or guardian the benefits of vaccination and “the health risks to the student and to the community of the communicable diseases for which immunization is required.”

Under the law, the certificate must be submitted to the school before the child enters kindergarten, sixth grade or ninth grade.

http://www.pantagraph.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/certificate-proposed-for-religious-objections-to-vaccines/article_e46f7a17-0275-5db7-a8b8-32e5fb439519.html

[tymorial]

1. I'm all for making it more difficult for people to justify not vaccinating their children.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Still don't want the unvaccinated around the rest of the community or in public schools.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. If they're going to get exemptions, they should at least have to put in writing

that they know they are putting their children's and others' health at risk (ie those who have medical reasons they can't be vaccinated), and that their religion is forcing them to put those people at risk. They could have the option of naming the religious adviser who they claim forces them to do it.

That way, there's an evidence trail for any future civil claims.

[rug]

5. I agree.

If the exemption is based on a sincerely held belief, the least they can do is put it in writing.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Thereby making their belief more material than the entire religion backing it.

[rug]

7. Considering the belief is immaterial, that's a foolish statement.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Incorrect.

Material forces can alter or break belief. Just as the electronic bits that make up this conversation are 'immaterial', they are still recorded as magnetic anomalies on physical media, transmitted in packets of electronic and optical pulses, etc.

So. No, I disagree with you.

[rug]

9. The electronic bits are indeed material. And measurable.

The ideas they carry are not.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Again, disagree. You pass judgment on the value of posts all the time.

Likewise, you'd probably be surprised to discover how often I run your posts through a Flesch–Kincaid readability and grade level analysis, or a Simple Measure of Gobbledygook analysis engine.

If you shut down the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) with a transcranial magnetic probe in humans, >30% of the participants in the study reported no belief in heaven, god, or any of that tripe, and >28% expressed no fear or dislike of a hypothetical immigrant that expressed a negative opinion of the United States, over the control group.

Fascinating that your claim "Considering the belief is immaterial" can be un-done with a very material probe. Just coincidentally shutting down the same part of the brain that processes threat-fear response.


(An aside, but the study brings me back to a conversation I had with someone else on this site, wherein I informed him I don't think he believes at all; he's just afraid. None of you do.)

[rug]

12. I use a shredder on yours. Much more efficient.

And, given their content, they then make an excellent fertilizer.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. No material rebuttal, as per usual.

That's ok. People can follow the course of the conversation and see where content is lacking.

[rug]

14. This hardly needs a rebuttal.

I run your posts through a Flesch–Kincaid readability and grade level analysis, or a Simple Measure of Gobbledygook analysis engine.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. And that was hardly the material payload of my post.

[Nitram]

4. A certificate that allows their children to endanger the lives of other children?

How nice.

[rug]

10. You should speak to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

http://www.dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/health-care-regulation/complaints