It's for the kids, of course

I live in an area where a lot of parents, for reasons that I find unconvincing, are suspicious of vaccination and refuse to have their kids immunized against diseases, some of which have historically killed or crippled all too many children. The result is that my wife's pediatrics practice sees a small but steady stream of cases that seem drawn straight from 19th-century medical texts -- nasty ailments that were supposed to have been eliminated by now. Not surprisingly, we've chosen to vaccinate our son against everything. We're just not taking our chances in the rare-disease lottery.

But as unwise as I think it is for parents to resist vaccinating their children, there's something that's certainly worse: letting kids see their parents hauled off in chains because they're opposed to vaccination.

In Maryland, Prince George's County officials are threatening parents with $50 per day in fines and ten days in jail if they fail to vaccinate their offspring. Parents of 1,700 children have been ordered to show up with their kids to circuit court this weekend for a ritual tongue-lashing and mandatory inoculations. The penalties will be levied against those who refuse.

R. Owen Johnson Jr., chairman of the school board, is quoted saying, "This is a public health and a children's rights issue." Oh, that's a great blow for children's rights -- sending mom and dad off to the hoosegow because they calculate the risks and benefits of vaccination differently than does the majority.

The county's authority in this little travesty seems to come from a state law requiring public school attendees to be vaccinated, so it strikes me that the logical response for parents is to withdraw their children from the public schools. That might require some scrambling on the part of parents to find alternatives, but what a great opportunity for like-minded families to set up homeschooling co-ops to give the kids a better education than they're getting in the county holding pens.

Of course, with thousands of parents and kids ordered to appear at the courthouse, vaccination opponents might want to take this opportunity to drag Judges William D. Missouri and C. Philip Nichols Jr. from the bench and -- along with any other public officials who show their faces -- give them a well-deserved flogging.

It would be an object lesson for the children in attendance -- sort of an intellectual vaccination against the pernicious idea that government officials have the right to lock us behind bars if we don't bend to their will.