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Vaccination: objections to your conscientious objection

By Martin Bouckaert - posted Wednesday, 9 May 2012


“Compared to the dangers of not refusing vaccination? I don’t understand why you would try to force this on me. I am that boy’s mother and I know him best! So, sign the form or I’ll find someone who will!”

The doctor replied, “I’m not forcing you to do anything. You’re trying to manipulate me into signing a form for you. I just cannot, in good conscience, believe that you have any real understanding of the implications – not only for your child, but for the children he’ll come into contact with. I’m sorry, but I conscientiously object to your conscientious objection.”

Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network, Australia's most prominent anti-vaccine lobby, once attempted to claim that doctors have no right to refuse to sign these forms. Fortunately, they have every right. In fact, they have more right to refuse to sign than anyone else does to refuse vaccination. Why? Because of the consequences for the whole community. In signing these forms, both the doctor and the parent risk the health of their children, and the health of those around their children, including themselves.

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Vaccine objectors don’t see this as a risk, of course. Whatever irrational train of thought leads them to believe vaccines are dangerous is the same one that leads them to privilege their knowledge above that of a medically trained professional.

What happens when the doctor refuses to sign the conscientious objector’s form? Of course, they go looking for another, who will also refuse, especially if the other doctor is local and knows the first one well. You see, just like real estate agents blacklist troublesome tenants, doctors share information on troublesome patients. As soon as you try the first one, the rest of them already know you’re coming.

So along come's Meryl Dorey's anti-vaccine praxeum, where you can learn how to complete the forms and manipulate doctors into signing them. It comes fully loaded with a buddy program. Are your own talents at manipulating, intimidating, or downright threatening your doctor a bit rusty? That's okay; Mrs Dorey has a group of volunteers in various parts of the country you can call on to do it for you. Of course, the doctors are catching on to this as well, and don't think for one second that they aren't threatened by anti-vaccination bullies, because they are. That's not to say that this is a common occurrence, but it does occur. 

Have you completed that sentence yet? If not, it might help to get a better grasp of what being a doctor is all about. Basically, you’re doing one of those jobs that have to be done, but few have either the desire or the skills to do. It is as much a dirty profession as an elite one. Many try their hand at medical training, going into it with delusions of money and grandeur, but few have the stomach for the day-in, day-out regimen of the sick and wounded.

Imagine for a moment all the different parts of the human body, inside and out, and what can go wrong with them. Imagine having to treat genital herpes, examine feet covered in callouses and bunions, or clean up the puke from your office floor five times a day from people that don’t know simple food safety. Then, tell me you could keep it all together for any amount of money

The doctor I interviewed takes her job very seriously, and she loves it. I've seen her a few times, and when she smiles, she means it. She likes to be at work. Her motivation is helping people, saving lives, maintaining good health in her community and keeping her clinic’s ethical reputation high. So, when this anti-vaccine mother accused her of being a “big pharma shill” after her final refusal to sign, it cemented her decision to refuse to sign any such forms. She decided that if she’s going to be accused of being a shill of any kind, she was going to be one of the best; a shill for reason, evidence and the best interests of community health.

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In the meantime, the patients who need her are still getting her very close attention and she has yet to encounter a case of serious adverse reaction to vaccines in her office – as would be the case with many similar practices around the country.

Doctors, in my opinion, don’t just deserve respect, they earn it every single day, with every patient they see, every minute of their time that they devote to health and healing in others and with every personal hit they take from conspiracy theorists with an anti-medicine agenda.

Anti-vaccination lobbyists in this country have every right to speak their minds and to believe their crackpot ideas. It’s when their dangerous views threaten the health of others, or when they misuse their freedom of speech to question the ethics of medical professionals who are only trying to do their jobs that they need to be stopped.

Have you finished that sentence yet? If you've decided you wouldn't want to sign either, then consider asking your local doctor how you can help support them in their efforts to keep your local community safe. You might also consider joining a grass roots pro-vaccination group like Stop the Australian Vaccination Network, which works to highlight the errors in Mrs Dorey’s dangerous propaganda and hamper her efforts to confuse parents with misinformation.

The rights that we have and the rights we feel we are entitled to can, from time to time, be completely different rights. But surely it’s a given that no parent should have the right to endanger their children’s lives, or that of the wider community, by exposing their children to the risk of preventable diseases. So, I believe I can finish that sentence by refusing to sign with as much (or more) right to refusal as the person refusing to vaccinate. Otherwise, we start getting into a minefield of hypocrisy and double standards and nobody really wants to go there. Nobody, that is, except for Meryl Dorey.

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About the Author

Martin Bouckaert had been involved with the Stop the AVN on Facebook. Martin is currently studying journalism at Griffith University.

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All articles by Martin Bouckaert

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