A Christian Writes in Defense of Vaccinations

It’s good to see Rachel Marie Stone, a contributor to Christianity Today‘s her.meneutics blog, speak out in favor of vaccinations:

I’m one of the moms you might expect to oppose vaccines. We try to eat local and organic, don’t watch television, homeschool our kids, and wear natural fibers. My son was born into a birthing tub with a midwife present. But in November we’re also moving to Malawi, where diseases like polio, typhoid, tetanus, and cholera are not theoretical. We need those vaccines.

…

What concerns me about the anti-vaccination movement is not merely the fact that people are so easily persuaded by falsified claims about vaccine risks, nor the tragedy of people losing their lives to diseases that were (thanks to vaccines) nearly eradicated. Rather, I’m concerned that so many people seem willing to let others carry the supposed burden of vaccination so that they don’t have to. To me, that’s a failure of the commandment to love our neighbors…

Don’t get too worked up over the fact that someone who believes in all sorts of supernatural weirdness just cited good science in order to debunk a popular myth. I did… and now my head hurts.

Just accept it and hope more people are swayed in the right direction. (While many of the commenters try to rationalize their anti-vax mindsets — God will take care of everything, so no vaccines needed! — several of them support what the author wrote.)

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Chris Kilroy

Why is this even a thing? We have decades of solid medical research to demonstrate that vaccinations are effective and safe. They protect against all kinds of diseases that in the past have caused untold damage to the populace. I can’t understand religious opposition to vaccination. It doesn’t make logical sense. I have friends who don’t let their kids get certain shots and I’ve yet to understand their reasons. They even move pediatricians because their doctor argues in favor of vaccinating their kid. WTF?
machintelligence

It does make illogical sense, however. These are the folks who believe that, if it didn’t happen to me or someone I know, if doesn’t happen. Think of it as frequency dependent selection.
http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Frequency-dependent_selection
CultOfReason

The fact that this is even worthy of a blog post (i.e. a Christian speaking sensibly on a topic that the rest of us considers a fairly mundane and well known fact) speaks volumes as to how low the bar has been set.
Sagrav

Why is creationism still a thing? We have decades of solid data in the fields of paleontology, archeology, biology, and cosmology demonstrating that the universe is much older than 6-10 thousand years and that all animals were not poofed into existence at the beginning of those 6-10 thousand years. Yet millions of religious people around the world refuse to change their opinions in the face of that mountain of scientific data.

Science looks like a religion to a lot of people. Their own religions promise them damnation should they consider even parts of other religions to be true. Thus, they are acting out of self preservation. Theirs is a world filled with demon-influenced liars who only seek to drag true believers down into the lake of fire. Some of these people gain access to new information and choose to break away from this terrible fantasy. The rest cannot.
A3Kr0n

What the hell is a “birthing tub”? Is that where the baby get baptized on his or her way out?
Pisk_A_Dausen

Basically a bath tub for giving birth in. (I think regular bath tubs are used too, but there are specially made types that help you hold a good position, AFAIK.) And they’re used for water births, i.e. giving birth in a tub of water.
Gringa

I do believe that there are reasons to adapt the vaccine schedule to fit your family’s needs, but I think that is different than avoiding them all together. I did a delayed/spaced-out vaccine schedule with my daughter, but she did get all of her shots.
Guest

This is a classic case of stereotypes added to ignorance (willful or otherwise) to make a non-point about a non-issue. Christians, as a whole, have no more problems with vaccines than anyone else. Some, fearing that the HPV vaccine would be seen as ‘you could get cancer from sex, take this vaccine and all will be well, now go have sex’ didn’t like the idea of mandated vaccinations. But it was for this one issue. While there are some divisions or groups within the global Christian world that oppose vaccines in general, they no more represent the entire Christian faith than those Hollywood celebrities who have made opposing vaccines their cause represent Hollywood. I know, you can have headline ‘Christian supports vaccines’ and count on ill-informed folks who hate Christianity with the white hot fury of a thousand suns to jump in and give their nickel worth of input. But reality is reality after all.
RobMcCune

I don’t see why the author being a christian is such a big deal, Michelle Bachmann’s campaign went downhill after she strayed from tea party craziness into antivaxx territory. The real news is that she’s into a lot of organic and au natural stuff and hasn’t fallen for that particular alt med conspiracy theory.
Py

Don’t get too worked up over the fact that someone who believes in all
sorts of supernatural weirdness just cited good science in order to
debunk a popular myth. I did… and now my head hurts.

You complement a Christian for supporting a good cause while simultaneously still acting like a complete asshole towards her.
Patterrssonn

“Hate Christianity with the white hot fury of a thousand suns”

It was a good Poe but you blew it with that one.
MV

No he didn’t. He merely pointed out that she accepts the science when it comes to vaccinations but not her religion and that position doesn’t make much logical sense. Science isn’t a salad bar where you get to pick and choose. If you are selective with science, then I would suggest that you don’t really understand it or accept it.

Vaccination isn’t a “cause”. It’s the correct thing to do based on our understanding of science which informs our morals and ethics.
Robert

How do you know she doesn’t accept science when it comes to religion?

Only because you assume that science somehow “disproves” religion. But this is impossible: science (used in the modern sense) only speaks to what is observed empirically. It has nothing to say about anything which is not empirically quantifiable.

It seems you understand this at some level, because you note that science “informs” rather than discovers or dictates our morals and ethics. Morals and ethics are not themselve empirical, so science cannot determine them. But morals and ethics rely on a full understanding of reality, which includes scientific knowledge and theory; so science certainly does inform our decision-making process.

Likewise, science can inform, but not determine, our metaphysical and spiritual outlook. They are not naturally opposed to one another, and it is a philosophical mistake to set them against one another.
Robert

Its a vaguely trendy way to give birth that is supposed to A) be more natural than the stirrup method favored in hospitals, and B) minimize the stress to both mother and child. The benefits and drawbacks are both hotly disputed at this time, and I’m not aware of any definitive research on the method.

Suffice it to say that any overlap with Christianity is entirely coincidental.
Robert

As wikipedia has it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_birth
A3Kr0n

GMBO!
nakedanthropologist

While I agree that science (as used in the modern sense) is a tool with which one can use to inform oneself, I have to disagree with you (respectfully) on the point that ethics and morals are not empirical. Morals and ethics are an empirical reality – is a person does x, then that action (x) will affect something/someone else – this is an empirical reality.
sam

yes, I see no weirdly supernatural beliefs in her post. I don’t count xtianity because it isn’t weird in this country. In fact, I tend to agree with most of her concerns (not sure what the big deal is with non-natural fibers, though I happen to prefer the feel of cotton). You might not agree with her, but what’s supernatural about any of that?
Baby_Raptor

Reality is indeed reality. But I wouldn’t expect a theist to know that, because you lot don’t live here.
Baby_Raptor

She’s a Christian and she’s home schooling.

She’s going out of her way to keep her offspring indoctrinated and in the bubble. Keeping them away from anything that would challenge the belief in the supernatural that she’s trying to brainwash them into.
Rachel Marie LaMothe Stone

Wow
Rachel Marie LaMothe Stone

Wow, lots of assumptions in these comments about how/why I homeschool, raise my kids, practice my faith, birth in a tub, etc! But, thanks, Hemant, for being brave enough to cite a Christian who likes science! (There are actually more of us than you might think. We’re just not as loud.)
Sinfanti

I’m not even sure how convinced I am of the sensibility here. I read that quote and got the impression that if not headed for Malawi the author might not have been so quick to get the kids their jabs.
Anna

I’m curious why they’re going to Malawi. Heavily religious family + moving to Africa = converting the heathen?
Pseudonym

A low bar indeed, on several levels. It shows how out of touch many Christian communities in the United States are that it needs to be said. But it also shows how out of touch the Internet atheist community is that it’s perceived as remarkable in any way.
Pseudonym

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. “Local and organic”, “natural fibres”… they sound more like hippie Christians than your typical evangelicals.
wmdkitty

The stirrup method results in a longer and more difficult birth due to pushing against gravity. Oh, it’s convenient for doctors and others checking up on the woman in labor, but it’s crap for actual birthing. A squatting position is both more natural and more efficient.
Pseudonym

Cause and effect informs morals and ethics, but they are not morals and ethics. There is no controlled double-blind test that you could perform to determine whether or not murder is wrong. You could show that murder kills people, but not that it’s morally or ethically wrong.

Lest I be misunderstood, I am also not saying that morality or ethics requires an external source which to everyone’s surprise closely resembles my preferred deity.

Several millennia of philosophers, both religious and secular, have worked on the problem of grounding ethics. I’m not going to try to summarise it here, but both “it’s empirical” and “just defer to a deity” are grossly inadequate.

And yes, Sam Harris has no clue what he’s talking about, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Anna

They do, but there’s an evangelical subset that is very crunchy, yet still fundamentalist when it comes to doctrine. Since she’s writing for Christianity Today, I’m assuming she’s not a liberal “all paths lead to heaven” Christian.
Erp

Home schooling might be a perfectly rational choice if the local schools aren’t teaching science, history, etc because of local pressure. It goes double if the predominant religion isn’t yours (e.g., Catholics are likely to be unhappy if the school ethos is all evangelical protestant [and even Protestants disagree with Protestants]). In addition if they are going to Malawi, they may well have no choice but home schooling there (or boarding school) so starting the practice in the US to ensure they have everything they need where they can get anything missing is probably a good idea. They may also be teaching the children the basics of Chichewa before they get to Malawi.

My own guess is that most anti-vaxers are New Age types not conservative Christians. The local Montessori schools and similar tend to have low rates of vaccination. Note people often claim a ‘religious faith’ exception but in many cases that is because they don’t intend to vaccinate their children and claiming a religious exemption is the only way to do it legally (barring those cases where a good medical reason exists not to vaccinate).
Rachel Marie LaMothe Stone

You know? Actually knowing a person and why she does what she does and believes what she believes is a lot more scientific than making speculations based on one isolated article. Actually knowing people tends to disrupt preconceived narratives. Most of these comments remind me of Fox News (which I only watch via Jon Stewart, BTW) in their speculative blathering. But whatever. Peace, all!
grerp

Interestingly, when the U.S. was far more Christian, vaccination was nearly universal.
grerp

This was not because they were Christian but because they were living in an age where children routinely died in large numbers from diseases that were preventable with vaccination. We are far enough away from those days that people feel comfortable speculating whether vaccination is necessary.
Gringa

Since then the number of shots on the vaccination schedule has
sky-rocketed. It’s getting a little ridiculous. I started delaying
shots because my daughter had a particularly bad reaction/rash/fever after
receiving several shots in one visit (8 vaccines in total), which led to
3 sleepless nights for us. After that I put a limit on the number of
shots she could receive at once. Yes this resulted in a few more
doctor’s visits, and she was a little behind, but at least she was functional afterwards.
Pseudonym

I’d just like to point out that childbirth in the US is completely screwed up. It’s yet another symptom of the underlying problem that the US simply does not understand the concept of “public health”. The whole “health care” system is set up for the benefit of the AMA and the HMOs. Doctors and patients are an afterthought.

For example, the pain relief options are essentially an epidural, pethidine (“demerol” as you call it) or nothing. Anywhere else in the developed world, there are more options.

Take nitrous oxide, for example. It provides pretty good low-level pain relief, with fewer side-effects. So why isn’t it provided in the US? Probably because it’s too cheap: it can be administered by a nurse, and doesn’t require a prescription or an anesthetist.
Anna

Rachel, you’re certainly welcome to comment here. I think it’s in human nature to speculate on the people we read about in articles. Since we don’t know why you’re homeschooling, or why you’re moving to Malawi, all we can do is make guesses based on the limited information we have. If any of us have misconceptions about you, your family, or your belief system, you can always respond and clear things up.