Massachusetts. At the time of the case there had already been mandatory vaccination laws enacted in Massachusetts. In fact, in 1855 Massachusetts ruled that school children must be vaccinated. Today every state in the United States has mandatory vaccionation laws (Lobo 265). Within the Jacobson v. Massachusetts case it was expressed that Jacobson refused to pay a five dollar fee for not getting vaccinated for smallpox. Jacobson argued that he and his son had suffered from vaccinations in the past (Lobo 266). The court ruled in Massachusetts ' favor, but had implemented limitations that, in Lobo 's words, "a vaccine mandate could not be arbitrary, unreasonable, or far beyond what is reasonably required to ensure the public health and safety" (Lobo 267). The way I take it, they were acknowledging the need to exempt future people who cannot take vaccines, however, in Jacobson 's case Massachusetts was being reasonable and Jacobson could have paid five dollars. Personally, I feel that if Jacobson really did have a reaction to vaccines and if he wasn 't just resisting vaccines for a lesser reason then Massachusetts really were being unreasonable. If people are claiming that vaccines can have side effects, then how dangerous are they? I decided to read further into Lobo 's essay and I found his claim that all vaccines can have side effects. However, most vaccines that do have side effects do not inflict serious harm. …show more content…
It is bad enough that children are bullied about their own strangeness, but in this heated debate, to hear other parents and students bash your their parents, is just too much stress for studious students whom are already at risk of illness (Gostin 1099). Lawrence Gostin wrote in his article, Law, Ethics, and Public Health in the Vaccination DebatesPolitics of the Measles Outbreak, that a report recorded, "Their children have been sent home from school. Their families are barred from birthday parties and neighborhood play dates. Online, people call them negligent and criminal" (Gostin 1099). After reading this I felt like the strong and controversial topic of this vaccination issue is doing more harm than good. People should be supported for their decissions. Not all children will understand that it is their parents that are being reticuled and not them. Children might be caught inbetween. This is a debate that should be debated but it might better be expressed and succeed if the focus were on educating people about vaccines rather than politics and punishing people for their varying