By PAULA KIRBY - THE WASHINGTON POST
Added: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 UTC

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/paula_kirby/2009/10/vaccination_the_moral_imperative.html

Q: Polls show a majority of Americans are concerned about the H1N1 virus (swine flu), but also about the safety and efficacy of the swine flu vaccine. Is it ethical to say no to this or any vaccine? Are there valid religious reasons to accept or decline a vaccine? Will you get a swine flu shot? Will your children?

Are there valid religious reasons to ignore the speed limit? Or to dump sewage in a river? Or to ignore basic construction safety principles in the design of a bridge or a skyscraper? Why is it that we can immediately see the absurdity of such an idea when applied to other areas of public health and safety but can happily entertain the thought, even for a second, when it comes to vaccines?

Perhaps it is to do with the religious notion that suffering is somehow part of a divine plan; that it is either ordained by God in order to punish us or to shape us in some other way, or it is simply the natural consequence of Adam and Eve and that pesky apple, and therefore in some never-to-be-adequately-explained way something we have deserved and which it behooves us to accept meekly. From this perspective to conquer a disease is to fly in the face of divine providence, it is to overreach ourselves and to meddle in the affairs of God.

In reality, however, I suspect that opposition to the H1N1 vaccine has less to do with religion and more to do with the widespread mistrust of scientific medicine: a stance which is as baffling to me as religious belief. Scientific medicine has transformed our lives and made the business of living safer, less painful, healthier and consequently longer than it has ever been in the whole course of human history.
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http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/paula_kirby/2009/10/vaccination_the_moral_imperative.html

TAGGED: COMMENTARY, MEDICINE, MORALITY