Vaccination Ethical Dilemmas

The Ethics of Taxing Unvaccinated Persons In January of 2015, over 100 people in the US contracted measles due to an outbreak in California at Disneyland. This outbreak was spread in part by people who had refused to accept vaccinations for themselves or their children. A proposed solution to curb the number of unvaccinated children and adults is to implement a tax on those who refuse vaccinations. By creating a tax on those who refuse to accept vaccinations, a tangible disincentive is created for those who opt-out of vaccinations, thus creating the desire to be vaccinated, if only to avoid paying yet another tax. In doing so, more people are choosing to be vaccinated and thus improving herd immunity, which is a greater good. Anti-vaccination …show more content…
“If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode” (Mill). Many people who have chosen to not be vaccinated have weighed the benefits and risks of vaccinations, and have decided that the potential risks outweigh the potential benefits. Their own mode is to not get vaccinated, and it is the ethical thing to do to respect one’s own mode of laying out their existence, rather than forcing someone to comply with what “everybody else” or the government thinks is best for …show more content…
Sometimes, offering payment for a certain behavior gets you less of it, not more” (Sandel 114). It is worth noting that the whole goal of the tax is to get more people vaccinated, not less. If people feel that their beliefs are being challenged, the natural instinct is to rebel against whoever is challenging the deeply-held belief. If a vaccine tax were to be implemented, researchers might find that fewer people are willing to be vaccinated, rather than the intention of more people “choosing” to be vaccinated. This would then be a hindrance to the utility of vaccines. If fewer people are choosing to be vaccinated, herd immunity will decrease, thus increasing the likelihood of large-scale epidemics, which would then dramatically increase healthcare costs. It is a lose-lose situation for most everyone involved, especially for those who contract any number of diseases. It is therefore in the best interests of society to maintain herd immunity; thus implementing a tax on unvaccinated persons would be unethical due to the potential consequences arising from the nature of such a tax, which decreases societal