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Like a lot of people, in January when I suddenly developed a high fever (101 F), body aches, fatigue, nasal congestion and cough, I thought for sure it was influenza, which I had not experienced for decades. Turns out, according to a recently released CDC report, in the 2016-2017 flu season the odds are only about one in 10 that flu like illness symptoms are, in fact, caused by type A or B influenza.
On February 17, 2017, the Centers for Disease Control published an update on influenza activity in the U.S. for four months between Oct. 2, 2016 and Feb. 4, 2017.1 The new news is the CDC found that over the past four months:
Influenza A (H3N2) viruses accounted for the vast majority of all public health lab confirmed influenza cases;
Out of nearly 393,000 respiratory illness lab specimens tested in the U.S., only about 38,000 cases – or 10 percent - were positive for type A or B influenza;
Persons over age 65 accounted for more than 60 percent of lab confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations;
About 6,800 hospitalized cases of lab confirmed influenza have been reported so far and it is estimated that about 95 percent had at least one high risk medical condition, such as heart disease; metabolic disorder or obesity, with more than half of the children hospitalized also suffering with asthma, chronic lung disease or a neurological disorder;
About 5 to 8 percent of all U.S. deaths reported over the past four months have been attributed to pneumonia or influenza, with 20 reported pediatric deaths associated with type A or B influenza;
The influenza strains included in this year’s flu vaccine are closely matched to the most prevalent influenza strains reported to be circulating in the U.S. Out of 484 different influenza viruses the CDC tested, 96 to 100 percent of influenza A viruses and 91 to 100 percent of influenza B viruses were antigenically similar to components of the 2016/2017 influenza vaccine.
CDC: This Year’s Flu Shot Only 43 Percent Effective Against Most Prevalent Strain
The old news is that, even when this year’s seasonal flu shot contains the same influenza strains that are circulating - like in most years2 - it is less than 50 percent effective across all age groups in preventing a trip to the doctor’s office for lab confirmed influenza. The vaccine is only 43 percent effective in preventing influenza A (H3N2), the most prevalent strain this year.
How many people following doctors’ orders and rolling up their sleeves to get an annual flu shot this year understand it has a 67 percent failure rate for the most common influenza strain circulating? That is like telling someone to buy a car with seat belts that fail 67 percent of the time!
But, beyond that, how many people understand that only 10 percent of all flu-like illness out there this year is actually influenza?
There are no guarantees in life. That goes for vaccination, too.
Vaccines Often Fail to Prevent Infection and Transmission
While many people believe that getting vaccinated guarantees you won’t get sick or make anyone else sick, vaccines do not always work as well as we have been taught to believe they do.3
Take influenza vaccines, for example. Influenza is a viral infection that causes type A or B influenza, which can have serious pneumonia complications for some people, like the elderly.4
Doctors routinely give annual flu shots to children and adults, including pregnant women.5 6 7 And in many states, health care and day care workers are required to get an annual flu shot or they are fired from their jobs.8 9 10
But public health officials admit that influenza vaccines fail to prevent influenza more than half the time.11 And in some years, flu shots do not prevent influenza at all because they don’t contain the influenza strains that are making people sick.12
Plus, you can get a flu shot and still get infected with influenza but only have minor symptoms or no symptoms at all.13 Even if you have been vaccinated, you can be a silent carrier of influenza and infect other people without even knowing it.
This is something to keep in mind when you are in a doctor’s office or hospital, where all employees have been vaccinated and assume they are protected, but where influenza could still be circulating among the staff.
Most Flu Like Illness Not Influenza
But perhaps the biggest misconception of all is that during the flu season, every time you get a fever, headache, sore throat, cough, and a tired, achy feeling all over, you probably have influenza that could have been prevented with a flu shot.
The truth is that, when doctors get suspected cases of influenza tested in labs, more than 70 percent of the time it is not type A or B influenza but another virus or bacteria causing a respiratory flu-like illness that is mistaken for influenza.14 15
When beliefs about vaccine effectiveness are not grounded in truth, they can put you, your family and people you know at risk.
Whether you have been vaccinated or not, if you have even mild symptoms of being sick, stay away from close contact with infants, pregnant women and people who are immune compromised until you are well.
Learn More About Vaccines and Diseases
At NVIC.org, learn more about vaccines, diseases and the human right to informed consent to medical risk taking.
Empower yourself today with well-referenced information that can help you make educated decisions about vaccination.
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice. Take the First Step: Explore Our Webpages that Inform and Empower
We hope you will explore our Ask 8 Questions webpage, which is a good first step in the vaccine decision-making process. As you begin to ask these questions, please continue to empower yourself by visiting Diseases and Vaccines and Know the Risks & Failures webpages. Continue to Ask 8 QuestionsVisit Our Ask 8 Information Kiosk for Free Resources
This section of our website will direct you to referenced information and a variety of materials designed to educate you about vaccines, diseases and how to make informed vaccination choices. You can download posters and brochures to share with others or send an ecard to family and friends. Continue to Kiosk
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There is a lot of talk these days about the beliefs of judges who
will be appointed by a new President to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is an
important conversation because what those judges believe will be
reflected in the legal decisions they make, decisions that could have
consequences for centuries.
In states where vaccine exemptions are under attack, advocates for
“no exceptions” mandatory vaccination laws argue that you and your
children can be forced to get vaccinated because eight men sitting on
the U.S. Supreme Court said so in 1905. Public health officials and
industry and medical trade lobbyists often invoke the Victorian era
ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts1 to deny Americans the freedom to make voluntary decisions about vaccination.
Attorney Lawrence Gostin has said that Jacobson v. Massachusetts“is often regarded as the most important judicial decision in public health.”2
He got that right. He knew he could use it after 9-11 to re-write state
public health laws giving government more police power to trample on
freedom whenever health officials declare a “public health emergency.”3 4 5
The tragic legacy of Jacobson v. Massachusetts not only
haunts public health law making in the U.S., it has come to define it.
If you wonder why this summer CDC officials boldly announced they want
more police power to yank you off a plane and put you into involuntary
quarantine because they believe you might get measles, you can thank the
Supreme Court.6 If your healthy unvaccinated child has been kicked out of school while sick vaccinated children are allowed to stay7 - or if you have been fired from your job because you said “no” to getting a flu shot8 - look no further than Jacobson v. Massachusetts.
In a nutshell, the judges sitting on the Supreme Court more than a
century ago used bad logic, relied on old science and made the
ridiculous assumption that doctors are infallible to give government the
green light to force healthy Americans to risk their lives with a
pharmaceutical product based on “common belief” rather than fact.
Piously waving the “greater good” flag, they threw individuals under the
bus by throwing civil liberties out the door.
Here is how the Supreme Court created the legal club being used today
to take away your right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience and
religious belief when making vaccine decisions for yourself or your
children.
Pastor Jacobson and His Son Had Suffered Severe Reactions to Smallpox Vaccine
In 1904, a Lutheran minister, Swedish immigrant Henning Jacobson,
objected to a Cambridge, Massachusetts Board of Health law requiring all
adults to get a second smallpox vaccination or pay a $5 dollar fine.
Pastor Jacobson and his son had suffered severe reactions to previous
smallpox vaccinations and he logically argued that genetic
predisposition placed him at higher risk for dying or being injured if
he was revaccinated.
He correctly concluded that smallpox vaccine ingredients were toxic
and often caused injury and even death and that medical doctors were
unable to predict who would be harmed.9 10 11 12 13 14 15
He made the legal and ethical argument that being required to get
revaccinated was an assault on his person and a violation of his 14th
Amendment right to liberty and equal protection under the law.16
Jacobson v. Massachusetts Affirms Infallibility of Doctors
But the attorneys representing medical doctors persuaded judges in
the state court that Jacobson did not know what he was talking about and
ruled against him. Instead of simply paying a $5 fine, Jacobson
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a mistake that led to one of
the most unethical and dangerous legal decisions in American
jurisprudence.
In a split decision with one dissenting vote, the Court majority,
including Oliver Wendell Holmes, said that citizens do not have the
right under the U.S. Constitution to be free at all times because there
are “manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subjected for the common good.”
They said that state legislatures have the constitutional authority to
enact compulsory vaccination laws and exercise police power to restrict
or eliminate liberty during smallpox epidemics to “secure the general comfort, health and prosperity of the state.”
The judges dismissed Jacobson’s concern about being genetically
susceptible to vaccine harm. Instead they chose to incorrectly affirm
the infallibility of doctors by making this ignorant statement: “The
matured opinions of medical men everywhere, and the experience of
mankind, as all must know, negative the suggestion that it is not
possible in any case to determine whether vaccination is safe.”
Compulsory Vaccination Compared to Military Draft
Comparing compulsory smallpox vaccination of adults with the military draft in times of war, the judges declared that a citizen “may
be compelled, by force if need be, against his will and without regard
to his personal wishes or his pecuniary interests, or even his religious
or political convictions, to take his place in the ranks of the army of
his country and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense.”
Of course, today, most of the citizen soldiers being forced to “risk
the chance of being shot down” in America are babies in newborn
nurseries17 18 and little children who want to go to school.19 20
Vaccine Law Can Be Based on “Common Belief,” Not Fact
Although the 1905 Supreme Court judges dismissed concerns about the
safety of smallpox vaccine as completely unfounded, they were clearly
uncomfortable about Jacobson’s contention that his life was on the line.
Not once, but repeatedly, they returned to the knotty problem of
individual risk only to ridicule Jacobson and point out that his
uneducated opinion was no match for the “common knowledge” expert
opinion of medical doctors. In fact, the judges went so far as to say
that - even if Jacobson could prove medical experts were wrong
about the safety of smallpox vaccination - states still have the
constitutional power to enact laws based on majority opinion and “common
belief” and not on truth or proven facts. They said:
“A common belief, like common knowledge, does not require
evidence to establish its existence, but may be acted upon without proof
by the legislature and the courts. The fact that the belief is not
universal is not controlling, for there is scarcely any belief that is
accepted by everyone. The possibility that the belief may be wrong, and
that science may yet show it to be wrong, is not conclusive...for what
the people believe is for the common welfare must be accepted as tending
to promote the common welfare, whether it does in fact or not.”
I wonder how many legislators know that the 1905 Supreme Court ruling
being used to eliminate exemptions from vaccine laws was based on the
idea that “common belief” – not hard evidence - can rule the day?
The 1905 Supreme Court judges tried to defend their decision by
explaining that if individuals like Jacobson were able to get exempted
from vaccination, it would mean that, “Compulsory vaccination could
not, in any conceivable case, be legally enforced in a community, even
at the command of the legislature, however widespread the epidemic of
smallpox; and however deep and universal was the belief of the community
and its medical advisors that a system of general vaccination was vital
to the safety of all.”
And there it is again. The Supreme Court told state governments they
can make vaccine laws based on “deep and universal” beliefs about
vaccination, especially beliefs held by medical doctors, but can ignore
the deeply held beliefs of individuals with good reason to conclude they
will be harmed by vaccination.
The Utilitarian Legacy of Jacobson v. Massachusetts
What were the beliefs of doctors in the early 20th
century? Well, many influential doctors in academia and those leading
social reform movements believed in a political philosophy called
utilitarianism, which has its roots in hedonism.21
Utilitarianism is a theory of morality based on a mathematical
equation: the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.22 23
Legislators like it because law making becomes a simple matter of
adding and subtracting numbers, like generals do on a battlefield when
counting how many casualties it took to win a battle.
What the U.S. Supreme Court did in Jacobson v. Massachusetts
was to codify the utilitarian rationale into U.S. law so government
officials could use it to make public health policy. But the morally
bankrupt core of utilitarianism was revealed in 1927, when Chief Supreme
Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and his colleagues used Jacobson v. Massachusetts to endorse the practice eugenics,24 an idea that Hitler took and ran with during the Holocaust.25
Jacobson v. Massachusetts Used for Eugenics in Virginia
In Buck v Bell (1927),26
Holmes ruled that the state of Virginia could use police power to
protect the public health by involuntarily sterilizing a poor 17-year
old single mother, Carrie Buck, who state officials had incorrectly
judged to be morally unfit and mentally retarded – in effect,
genetically defective - just like they said Carrie’s daughter and mother
were.27
In one of the most chilling statements in American jurisprudence, Holmes declared, “It
is better for the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate
offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society
can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough!”
The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
In the merciless 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, just as in the Machiavellian 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts
decision, ethical principles grounded in respect for individual human
life and civil liberties were stripped from U.S. law. The reasoning was
that if utilitarianism could be used to create forced vaccination laws
to immunize society from infectious disease, then forced sterilization
laws could be created to immunize society against becoming infected with
bad genes. The immoral premise that “the ends justifies the means”
created a perfect climate for what became a tyranny of the majority.28
By 1932, mandatory sterilization laws had been passed in 29 states.
More than 60,000 Americans were involuntarily sterilized by public
health officials before the barbaric medical practice was ended by most,
but not all, states in the late 1940s.29
Informed Consent Is a Human Right
Utilitarianism was discredited as a pseudo-ethic in 1947 at The
Doctor’s Trial at Nuremberg after World War II. The horrifying truth
about what can happen when utilitarianism is used to create public
health law was exposed for the whole world to see30 31 and gave birth to the informed consent principle articulated in the historic Nuremberg Code.32
The next year, basic human rights that include autonomy and freedom of
thought, conscience and religious belief were affirmed in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.33
Ever since, informed consent to medical risk taking has been the
central ethical principle guiding the ethical practice of modern
medicine.34 Except that public health officials and doctors giving vaccines in America today don’t want to respect that ethical principle.35 36 37 38 39 40
In 2005, professors of law and bioethics at Boston University wrote about how Jacobson v Massachusetts is no longer relevant. They said that, “Jacobson was decided in 1905, when infectious diseases were the leading cause of death,” and when “Few
weapons existed to combat epidemics.... Preserving the public’s health
in the 21st century requires preserving respect for personal
liberty...Public health programs that are based on force are a relic of
the 19th century; 21st-century public health depends on good science,
good communication, and trust in public health officials to tell the
truth.”41
How we can we trust public health officials who think that some children are expendable for the rest? Jacobson v. Massachusetts is a Supreme Court decision that allows government to commit human rights abuses.
Educate your legislators about the importance of protecting human
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I remember the day in 2007, when I was standing in front of a
Maryland country courthouse videotaping interviews with mothers and
fathers lined up with children, who had been thrown out of school for
failing to show proof they had gotten chickenpox and hepatitis B shots. 12
State public health officials were threatening the parents with fines
and jail time and suddenly, as we were talking, men in uniforms with
guns and dogs emerged from the courthouse and headed toward us. In the
pit of my stomach was the sickening feeling that people in countries
throughout history have felt when the exercise of freedom of thought,
speech and conscience is met with a demonstration of police power
wielded by agents of the State.
Today, the American people are challenged, as they have never been
before, to confront the expansion of government authority over our
bodies and the bodies of our children, specifically the exercise of
police power to take us into custody and isolate us without our consent
whenever public health officials believe we are sick or could become
sick. At stake is the preservation of human rights and cultural values
that have been part of America since the Declaration of Independence and
Bill of Rights defined civil liberties two centuries ago.
Are public health officials getting ready to apprehend and quarantine
you or your child if they believe you are, or could become, infected
with measles or any other communicable disease they decide is a threat
to the public health?
Are they enlisting airline and other public transportation personnel
to help them conduct a dragnet that will be easy for you to get caught
up in when you travel?
Once you are detained, can they hold you for 72 hours against your
will until you agree to be vaccinated or they declare you are no longer a
threat?
Is this for real or not? You be the judge.
CDC Moves to Amend Public Health Service Act
During the last days of summer, while we were vacationing, shopping
for school supplies or, in the case of Virginia families, while we were
busy pleading with legislators to protect the medical and religious
vaccine exemptions in state vaccine law, 34
public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were
quietly publishing a very long Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in
the August 15, 2016 Federal Register to amend federal public health law. 5The part of the Public Health Service Act they want to strengthen is the part that gives them power under the US Constitution 67
to restrict the freedom of a person entering the U.S. or traveling
between states if they believe the person is infected or could become
infected with certain kinds of communicable diseases. 8
You only have until Oct. 14, 2016 to make a public comment to the CDC
and contact your legislators in Congress, so please take this seriously
because what the CDC is proposing applies to all Americans who travel
outside the country or between states, especially on commercial
airlines. In the future, it could extend to any form of transportation
when you cross state lines, including by bus, train or car.
Involves States With Police Powers
This Notice of Proposed Rule Making – or NPRM - involves the
participation of federally funded state health departments and state
facilities, too, because the majority of police power to detain, isolate
and quarantine citizens belongs to the states. 910
Many state legislatures, which have legal authority to pass laws
controlling communicable diseases within state borders, voted to give
public health officials expanded police powers after Sept. 11, 2001 by
adopting the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) 111213 and The Turning Point Model State Public Health Act 14
created at Georgetown University’s Center for Law and the Public’s
Health and the CDC Collaborating Center Promoting Health through Law.
If this NPRM is implemented and the states follow suit, you and your
children could be vulnerable to detention and quarantine if health
officials decide you are, or could become, a transmitter of measles or
other infections because, for example, your electronic medical records
reveal you have not gotten every dose of every CDC recommended vaccine.
Let’s not forget that no government agency, corporation or person, who
creates, produces, sells, licenses, recommends, mandates or administers a
federally recommended vaccine to you or your child, has accountability
or liability in a court of law in front of a jury of your peers if you
become brain injured or die from vaccination.151617
The Quarantine List Was Short But Not Anymore
In a nutshell, the federal government is consolidating and
strengthening power that was originally used to prevent persons with
yellow fever and cholera from disembarking from ships entering US ports
in the 19th century and causing epidemics on land.18
For most of our country’s history, the list of contagious diseases that
allowed government health officials to detain and quarantine people
without their informed consent was appropriately very short, confined to
a few very serious contagious diseases, including yellow fever,
smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, and the plague.
It is worth noting that polio was never put on that list.
In the past 15 years, CDC officials persuaded two Presidents to issue
Executive Orders in 2003, 2005 and 2014 to expand the “isolate and
quarantine” list. In 2003, Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers, such as Ebola, and
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS were added. 19 In 2005, pandemic influenza was added. 20
But in 2014, the Presidential Executive Order did not name a specific
disease that would warrant detention and quarantine, it simply described
“diseases associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or
other respiratory illness” that have “the potential to cause a pandemic”
or are “highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not
properly controlled.” 21
Now, the word, “morbidity,” means the incidence or how often a disease occurs in a population, 22
and is very different from mortality, which means death. There are many
viral and bacterial infections that occur quite often in our country,
like bronchitis and the stomach flu. Almost every infection has the
potential to cause serious complications, injury or death for some
people, but that doesn’t mean government health officials should have
the power to take you into custody and isolate you if you look sick or
have been around someone who is sick.
Displaying symptoms of respiratory illness is wide-open territory,
and those symptoms can be due to everything from severe allergies,
asthma and COPD to sinus infections, pertussis, measles, chickenpox, and
pneumonia. Other symptoms that could get you detained under the NPRM
are vomiting and diarrhea or a fever over 100 degrees, which are common
to everything from allergic reactions, inflammatory bowel disease,
salmonella and norovirus infections to hangovers and the common cold.
How about a headache with stiff neck that could be nothing more than a
bad migraine?
CDC Puts Measles in Same Basket with Ebola
So people took notice when the CDC announced on Aug. 15 that there
was an urgent need to amend federal public health law to “reduce and
mitigate the risk of outbreaks of Ebola, MERS, measles and other
communicable diseases in the U.S.”
Ebola and…..MEASLES?
Let’s see, Ebola is a lethal, highly contagious virus that can
quickly overwhelm and damage the human immune system and cause
uncontrollable bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth and every orifice,
killing 25 to 90 percent of people who get it. 2324
And then there is measles, which I remember having as a child for a
week while I took naps, wore sunglasses and read books with my Mom, ate
chicken noodle soup and sipped fruit juice until the spots went away.
That was my experience with measles in the 1950’s and it was the
commonplace experience of 99.99 percent of baby boomers in America, who
got measles or chickenpox.
In 1960, three years before the measles vaccine was licensed, the
death rate for that childhood infection was 0.2 cases per 100,000
persons.25
Before the chickenpox vaccine was licensed in 1995, there were about
100 deaths per year in a U.S. population of 260 million people. 26
A case of measles or chickenpox does not come close to qualifying as a
public health emergency that requires a person to being taken into
custody by a government official.
Have a Rash? You Could Be Detained
And, yet, the CDC is arguing that, “The ongoing persistence of
measles in the United States provides a good example of the need for
this NPRM,”27
and “Although not a quarantinable communicable disease, every case of
measles in the United States is considered a public health emergency
because of its extremely high transmissablity.”28
So in the NPRM, the CDC defines a potentially “ill” person deserving
of special government scrutiny to be someone with “areas of the skin
with multiple red bumps, red, flat spots or blister like bumps filled
with fluid or pus that are intact or partially crusted over,” warning
ominously that “the presence of skin rash, along with fever, may
indicate that the traveler has measles, rubella (German measles),
varicella (chickenpox) meningococcal disease or smallpox.” 29
Smallpox? As in the infectious disease that the smallpox vaccine is
supposed to have eradicated from the earth? Or is the CDC talking about
weaponized smallpox, as in the weapons of mass destruction that have
never been found and prompted the U.S. Congress to create a lucrative
public-private partnership with the pharmaceutical industry after Sept.
11, 2001 to create lots of new liability free vaccines under the
umbrella of “bioterrorism?” 3031
OK, let’s accept that there is an extremely small possibility that
the traveler could be infected with weaponized smallpox, but let’s also
admit that it is far more likely that the traveler with a skin rash is
suffering from a bad sunburn, acne, rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, the
hives, or severe allergies and that a mild fever could be due to an old
fashioned cold. The specter of babies with eczema, teenagers with acne
and families who spent too much time in the sun being pulled off
airplanes and detained in CDC quarantine centers32
at airports around the country is comical, if it were not such an
obvious warning that Americans are in clear and present danger from
federal government overreach.
CDC officials appear to be obsessed with measles in the NPRM. They
point out that, “different diseases may elicit different levels of
responses at the public health department level, with a more rapid
response for highly infectious diseases like measles that can be
prevented with timely post-exposure prophylaxis, and a more measured
response for less infectious diseases like TB.” 33 The term “post-exposure prophylaxis” means they want to inject you with MMR vaccine.
Tuberculosis has been on the “isolation and quarantine” list for
decades. Now the CDC is implying that measles is more dangerous than
tuberculosis. Come to think of it, the NPRM looks like it was written
with Merck - the sole source supplier of MMR vaccine in the U.S. - at
the drawing table.
CDC Wants Airline Personnel to Report If You Are Sick
In the NPRM, the CDC uses their familiar refrain, “communicable
diseases are just a flight away,” and this is a heads up that your
airport experience is about to become an even bigger nightmare than it
already is if their plan becomes law. Frequent flyers, you should know
that the CDC wants to, in effect, deputize commercial airline personnel
to step up surveillance on passengers, who have rashes, diarrhea,
vomiting, low grade fevers, coughing or otherwise “appear obviously
unwell” and report them to health officials.34
I wonder how much money it is going to cost the airlines to train their
personnel to be infection control nurses and snitch on passengers who
“appear unwell” like coughing too much or going to the bathroom too
often?
And if you are suspected of being sick or likely to get sick with an
infection that health officials consider serious enough to qualify for
detention, here is what will happen:
After You Are Taken Into Custody
After you are taken into government custody, it appears you can be
held for 72 hours without the right to contact an attorney or anyone
else to appeal your detention. You will be asked to sign a contract with
the CDC that you consent to the “public health measures” being applied
to you or your minor child, which may include “quarantine, isolation,
conditional release, medical examination, hospitalization, vaccination,
and treatment.”35
But even if you don’t voluntarily agree to sign that contract, public
health officials can still do whatever they want to do to you because
“the individual’s consent shall not be considered a prerequisite to any
exercise of any authority” by the CDC.36
And if government officials do release you from detention, you can be
electronically tracked and monitored, including by electronic tracking
devices you have to wear or by email, cell phone texts, video
conferencing and voicemail. 37
It will be easy for the CDC to electronically track and monitor your
movements after they release you. Since the early 1990’s, when Congress
passed the phony HIPPA “privacy” legislation, federal health officials
have been using your tax dollars to create and operate electronic
medical records and vaccine tracking systems that use health care
identifiers to keep tabs on how healthy or sick you are, what kind of
drugs you take, and which vaccines you have gotten. 383940 HMOs are hooked in 41
so your medical information, including your vaccination status, can be
shared with gernment researchers, pharmaceutical companies and law
enforcement officials. 42
You Can Be Fined and Jailed for Disobeying CDC Orders
And if the CDC finds you guilty of disobeying their orders and they
believe you transmitted an infection to someone else, you can be fined
“$100,000 if the violation does not result in a death, or one year in
jail, or both, or a fine of no more than $250,000 if the violation
results in a death, or one year in jail or both.” 43
Plus they have added this curious language without explanation:
“Violations by organizations are subject to a fine of no more than
$200,000 per event if the violation does not result in a death, or
$500,000 per event it the violation results in a death.”44
Right now, measles is not officially on the “detain and quarantine
list.” But measles easily could be put on that “isolate and quarantine”
list if CDC officials convince the President to issue an Executive Order
if or when the NPRM becomes law after Oct. 14, 2016.
Eradicating Measles From the World
It is no mystery why the CDC gave measles a lot of attention in the
NPRM. Measles is the next infection that the World Health Organization
and Centers for Disease Control want to “eradicate” through global
forced vaccination programs like they did with smallpox and polio.4546
In underdeveloped countries, armed police with dogs join forces with
doctors with syringes and hunt down every last citizen to get them
vaccinated 474849 with, in this case, it would be an MMR shot or two, or three…or more.
Reportedly, the global measles eradication campaign 50
will kick into high gear after public health officials soon make the
announcement that polio has been eradicated from the earth. 51
That declaration will be made, even though vaccine strain polio
paralysis is crippling children, who have been given live oral polio
vaccine over and over and over again in mass vaccination “pulse”
campaigns. 52535455
The Long Arm of the Public Health Police
It looks like federal health officials are upping the ante in the
high stakes chess game that industry, government and medical trade have
been playing with the freedom of the American people for a long time.
The long arm of the public health police is being felt already in states
like Mississippi, West Virginia and California, which have eliminated
vaccine exemptions, and forced vaccination lobbyists in dozens of other
states are attacking exemptions protecting freedom of thought,
conscience and religious belief. 5657
Pediatricians are being encouraged to become belligerent enforcers of
vaccination and deny medical care to children, whose parents refuse to
give them every one of the 69 doses of 16 vaccines CDC officials
recommend. 585960
And nobody can forget the manufactured public health crisis in 2015,
when a few cases of measles at Disneyland turned into a media feeding
frenzy, with calls for doctors to be stripped of their medical licenses
for criticizing vaccine safety and providing care to unvaccinated
children, and for censorship of freedom of speech about vaccination, and
for parents of unvaccinated children to be charged with medical child
abuse, sued, fined and jailed.61
Sound familiar?
Most Americans support laws that prevent people infected with a
highly contagious lethal virus like Ebola from entering or traveling in
the country. That is why there was a justifiable public uproar in the
summer of 2014, when public health officials failed to exercise the
Constitutional authority they have always had to prevent persons
infected with or exposed to Ebola from entering or traveling in the U.S.62
But measles is not Ebola and chickenpox is not smallpox.
Millions of Americans Want Vaccine Freedom of Choice
Public surveys show that 87 percent of parents have declined one or more federally recommended vaccines for their children 63 and one-third of all U.S. adults 64 and 42 percent of Americans under age 30 65
don’t think parents should be forced to vaccinate their children. That
is a lot of Americans wanting to exercise freedom of thought, speech and
conscience when it comes to vaccination. But even supporters of
mandatory vaccination laws need to pause and reflect upon a federal
government plan to take into custody and quarantine people who have a
rash or cough a lot.
Just read the hundreds of public comments already posted on the CDC’s website by outraged citizens. 66 After you do that, please post your own comment, too, before Oct. 14 and contact your members of Congress, 67
who may not be aware of what the CDC is trying to do. Signing an online
petition or “liking” an article on Facebook is not enough. You need to
make direct contact by phone, email or in person with the people who
represent you in Congress and express your sincere concerns.
The CDC’s proposed change to the Public Health Service Act is not
about health. It is about taking away civil liberties that keep
Americans safe from tyranny. It is about getting permission to tag,
track and force individuals against their will to be injected with
biologicals of known and unknown toxicity today, so there will be no
limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name
of the greater good tomorrow.
The question is: Will be American people let them get away with it?
Will you let them get away with it?
Or will you stand with the growing citizen army of enlightened
Americans who are defending the human right to freedom of thought,
speech, conscience, religion and informed consent in this great country
of ours. You know what needs to be done. Stand up and protect your civil
liberties now, so you will never have to wish you had when you still
had the freedom to do it.
Before it is too late, browse our site and go to NVICAdvocacy.org to learn how to become a vaccine freedom advocate in your state.
To activate and view hyperlinked references, please click here
once and then click any superscripted number below to access a
hyperlinked reference, or scroll down to the bottom of the article to
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Every summer, Americans celebrate the 4th of July to mark the day in 1776 when the American colonies agreed they would no longer be ruled by an aristocracy. The Declaration of Independence
begins with, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights.” That Declaration was a rejection of oppression by a
ruling aristocracy and the pledge that this country would uphold the
unalienable natural right to life and liberty that belongs to every
person. 240
years later, we find ourselves again fighting for freedom from
oppression because we have allowed the rise of a new ruling aristocracy,
an elitist class of privileged citizens who want the legal right to
judge, shame, segregate, discriminate against and punish fellow citizens
who do not share their beliefs. Nowhere is this truth more self
evident than in the oppressive implementation of one-size-fits-all
mandatory vaccination laws that fail to respect biodiversity or human
rights and crush citizen opposition, in violation of the informed
consent ethic and freedom of thought, speech, conscience and religious
belief. 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425
When a ruling aristocracy uses the heel of the boot of the State to
create fear and oppress average citizens for their beliefs, there is no
other word for it but tyranny. The appropriation of unaccountable
authority by medical trade and the militarization of public health in
the 21st century should be of concern to every person who values life and liberty. 26272829
U.S. Supreme Court: Vaccines are “Unavoidably Unsafe”
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with what Congress said in
1986, and that is: government licensed vaccines are “unavoidably
unsafe” and pharmaceutical corporations should not be liable for vaccine
injuries and deaths. 3031
Today, when your child dies or is permanently brain injured after
vaccination or the vaccine fails to protect your child, you cannot hold
the vaccine manufacturer or the doctor who gave the vaccine accountable
in court in front of a jury of your peers.
With this free pass, in 2011 and 2012 the multi-billion dollar
vaccine machine powered by medical trade, industry and government rolled
into the legislatures of Washington, Vermont and other states with the
goal of eliminating religious and conscience vaccine exemptions that
have been in place in the U.S. for more than half a century. 32
NVIC has worked with families and other grassroots organizations to
protect vaccine exemptions in 15 states but, in 2015, Vermont lost the
conscience exemption and California lost the personal belief exemption
protecting both exercise of conscience and religious beliefs. 33
Vaccine Machine Invades Virginia
This year, the vaccine machine invaded Virginia. A proposed law was
introduced in the House of Delegates in January 2016 to strip away not
just the religious vaccine exemption, but also the medical exemption for
all children, whether they are being homeschooled or are enrolled in
public or private schools. 34
An individual physician would no longer exercise professional judgment
when granting a child a medical exemption but would become a government
agent enforcing the narrow one-size-fits all federal vaccine
contraindication guidelines 3536
approved by the Centers for Disease Control, which means that 99.99
percent of children would not qualify for the medical vaccine exemption
in Virginia. 37 Virginia
families pushed back quickly and hard against the draconian bill that
would make Virginia the state with the most oppressive forced
vaccination law in the country. 38 Although the bill was temporarily withdrawn this year by the attorney lobbyist and obstetrician sponsoring it, 39
similar legislation is expected to be reintroduced in 2017 after a
report is released by the Joint Commission on Healthcare this fall.
Virginia has a very tiny 1.1 percent vaccine exemption rate for
kindergarten children, which is lower than the national vaccine
exemption rate of 1.7 percent. In fact, Virginia ranks in the top 10
states with the lowest vaccine exemption rates. According to
the CDC, only 305 kindergarten children in Virginia have a medical
vaccine exemption and 891 children have a religious vaccine exemption. 40
So why has the vaccine machine attacked a state with one of the
lowest vaccine exemption rates in the country to persecute 1200
kindergarten children and their parents?
Freedom of Conscience, Religion First Became Law in Virginia
For the answer, you have to look no further than the history of the
Commonwealth of Virginia and the principles upon which the United States
of America was founded. Virginia is the hallowed ground where freedom
of thought, conscience and religion was first defined as a natural right
and was codified into American law. Virginia is the place where George
Mason and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia
Bill of Rights and the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom and where,
over the years, the General Assembly has enacted the strongest religious
freedom and parental rights legislation in the country. The First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution approved by Congress in 1789 says, “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
That First Amendment was based on the Virginia Bill of Rights adopted by the Virginia General Assembly before Congress approved the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights. Section 16 of the Virginia Constitution states that:
“All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience;” and
“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever,” and
“The General Assembly shall not prescribe any religious test whatever” on citizens.
This means it is a violation of the Virginia Constitution to
eliminate the legal right to exercise religious beliefs according to the
dictates of conscience, or to force citizens to belong to an organized
religion or a particular church in order to exercise conscience and
religious beliefs.
Virginia’s 1786 Act for Religious Freedom
There is another law in Virginia that protects freedom of religion. Virginia’s Act for Religious Freedom was adopted by the Virginia Assembly in 1786, three years before the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution was approved.
This historic Act is very clear about what religious freedom means,
stating in the first sentence that, “Almighty God hath created the mind
free.” Here Virginia law is saying that freedom of thought was given to mankind by God. The
Act goes on to say that, “All attempts to influence it by temporal
punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations… are a departure
from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion...” Here Virginia law is saying that a human being has anatural right to freedom of thought,conscience and religious beliefand must not becoerced or punished for exercising it.
The Act accurately points out that legislators and rulers are
“fallible,” that they do not have the right to assume “dominion over the
faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as
the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on
others….” Here Virginia law is emphasizing that human beings, including
government officials, are not infallible and that religious faith is
individual, a matter of conscience, and that legislators do not have the
right to impose their ideology, opinions and beliefs on others.
Even more strongly, the Act states that, “our civil rights have no
dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in
physics or geometry.” Here Virginia law is pointing out that individual opinions about
math and science differ, just as opinions about religion differ, and an
individual’s exercise of religious belief must not limit the
individual’s exercise of civil rights.
Finally, in a ringing defense for freedom of thought and religious
liberty, the Virginia Religious Freedom Act declares without
qualification that, “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support
any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be
enforced, restrained, molested or burdened in his body or goods, nor
shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief;
but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain,
their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no
wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities…..We are free to
declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the
natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed
to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an
infringement of natural right.”
When Virginia law talks about natural rights, it is referring to what
today are often described as human rights. Among the human rights
recognized globally is the right to freedom of conscience and religion.
Conscience can be defined as the part of your mind or an inner sense
that tells you what is right or wrong and guides you to a morally right
action.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
adopted in 1948 after World War II states that, “Everyone has the right
to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or
in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” When
explaining religious freedom to his friends and colleagues, Thomas
Jefferson said that freedom of religion belonged to, “the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of
every denomination.” 41
Jefferson believed in a Creator but he did not identify with an
organized religion nor was a member of a church, and his reference to
“Infidel of every denomination” likely was an affirmation of freedom of
thought, which also includes the freedom to be agnostic or an atheist
and have no religious beliefs. In other words, freedom of religion encompasses freedom of
thought and conscience and applies to all personal beliefs about
religion.
Additionally, the ethical principle of informed consent to medical risk taking has been defined as a human right since 1947. 424344 Today, informed consent is globally recognized as central to the ethical practice of medicine. 45
Informed consent means you have the right to be fully informed about
the benefits and risks of a medical intervention, such as use of a
pharmaceutical product like vaccines, and be free to make a voluntary
decision without being coerced or punished by anyone for the decision
you make. Your human right to exercise informed consent to medical risk
taking without being coerced or punished for the decision you make is
very similar to the language in the Virginia Religious Freedom Act that
protects citizens from being punished by government officials for
exercising the natural right to freedom of conscience and religious
belief.
Virginia Reaffirms Religious Freedom Act in 2007
In 2007, the Virginia Assembly reaffirmed
the Religious Freedom Act of 1786 with a major caveat and that is, “No
government entity shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of
religion… unless it demonstrates that application of the burden to the
person is (1) essential to further a compelling governmental interest
and (2) the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling
governmental interest.”
This caveat sets an appropriately high bar for substantially
restricting a person’s free exercise of religious belief. For example,
if the state argues it has a compelling governmental interest to prevent
an infectious disease epidemic, government officials must still
demonstrate that mandatory vaccination laws are “essential” to achieve
that goal, and then, further demonstrate that those laws are being
implemented in “the least restrictive” way.
Vaccine Freedom of Choice: A Human Right
When
we defend the natural right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience
and religious belief, we are not called upon to talk about different
scientific hypotheses explaining how and why vaccines can cause injury
and death, or why the CDC is unaccountable and a whistleblower should be
subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the risks of a particular
vaccine. The arguments about vaccine science and who is right and who is
wrong about it will be argued for the next century.
Our responsibility is to defend without compromise the human right to
exercise freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief for
ourselves and our minor children for whom we are legally responsible,
without being discriminated against and punished with denial of
education, health care, employment or other societal sanctions that
violate our civil rights.
There are three general statements about vaccination in the U.S. that cannot be disputed, which are:
Like prescription drugs, vaccines are pharmaceutical products that carry a risk of injury, death and failure. 46474849
There are genetic, biological and environmental high risk
factors that make some individuals more susceptible to vaccine
reactions, but doctors cannot predict who will be harmed. 50
The U.S. Congress and Supreme Court have declared government
licensed and mandated vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe” and more than
$3 billion dollars in federal vaccine injury compensation has been
awarded to children and adults under the National Childhood Vaccine
Injury Act of 1986. 51
These three basic facts about vaccination affect your human right to
exercise freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief: Because vaccines can injure or kill and doctors cannot predict
who will be harmed, and the U.S. government has acknowledged that fact
and indemnified pharmaceutical corporations and doctors, while awarding
financial compensation to children and adults who have been injured or
died from government licensed vaccines, 52
you have the human right to exercise informed consent, freedom of
conscience and religious belief when making a decision about vaccination
for yourself or your minor child.
Judeo-Christian Tradition Affirming Duty to Follow Conscience
The medical practice of vaccination is only 220 years old and came
thousands of years after the founding of the world’s major organized
religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism). There is
no major religion with a written tenet opposing vaccination. However,
there is a strong Judeo-Christian tradition affirming the duty of those
who believe in God to follow their conscience. If you are a Christian,
you can find passages in the Bible,
which affirm your beliefs as a Christian to follow your conscience and
the guidance given to you by God through prayer. Prayer for guidance is
central to many Protestant denominations. 53
For example, there is Timothy 1:5 - “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
There is Proverbs 3:5 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge
him, and he will make straight your paths.”
There is Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
There are many more Bible verses that affirm the need for Christians
to have faith in God and be guided by scripture and follow their
conscience.
Also, the definition of moral conscience is discussed in detail in the catechism of the Catholic Church,
which holds that, “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human
person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going
to perform, is in the process of performing or has already completed. In
all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows
to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man
perceives and recognizes the prescription of the divine law.”
In even stronger terms, the Catholic Church warns that, “a human
being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he
were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”
If you are of Jewish faith, your foundation is the old testament of the Bible and the Torah,
which emphasize that man is created in the image of God and that each
individual human being has worth and a right to equal and loving
treatment. Preservation of human life and reliance on God is central to
the teachings of Judaism.
There is Psalm 146 - “Halleluyah! Praise HASHEM, O my Soul! I
will praise HASHEM while I live, I will make music to my God while I
exist. Do not rely on nobles, nor on a human being for he holds no
salvation. When his spirit departs he returns to his earth, on that day
his plans all perish. Praiseworthy is one whose help is Jacob’s
God, whose hope is in HASHEM, his God. He is the Maker of heaven and
earth, the sea and all that is in them, Who safeguards truth forever…”
Whatever your sincere religious beliefs, you do not have to be a
member of an organized religion or church to hold them and defend your
human right to exercise freedom of conscience. In America, you should
not have to live in fear that you will be judged and punished for
exercising freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief.
Assault on Cultural Values and Beliefs in America
Mandatory
vaccination laws that violate human rights are the tip of the spear of
the political assault on cultural values and beliefs in America,
including freedom of conscience and religious belief. 54 This assault began in the 20th century with the tragically flawed 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jacobsen v. Massachusetts 5556 that used the pagan ethic of utilitarianism 575859
to devalue the life of the individual and endorse state forced
vaccination. That morally corrupt legal decision served as the basis for
another morally corrupt Supreme Court ruling in Buck v. Bell in
1927, when Virginia doctors were given the green light to sterilize
Carrie Buck in an endorsement of state eugenics laws based on the cruel
utilitarian “greater good” rationale. 6061
The 1905 U.S. Supreme Court justices may have given state health
officials the legal authority but they will never possess the moral
authority to demand that individuals sacrifice their lives for what the
State has defined as the “greater good.” Laws that fail to protect
freedom of thought, conscience, religious belief and informed consent
are a violation of human rights and the false ethic of utilitarianism
should never be used to implement public health policy in America.
Virginians Ready to Defend Human and Civil Rights
The ruling aristocracy operating the vaccine machine has chosen
Virginia as the battlefield to wage a war on religious liberty because
they know that if freedom of thought, conscience and religion can be
gutted in Virginia, it can be gutted anywhere.
The citizens of Virginia who understand what is at stake stand ready
to defend human and civil rights on the hallowed ground where freedom of
conscience was born in America. Because
the right of the State to tell us what to do to our bodies and the
bodies of our children ends where our right to protect our lives and our
children’s lives begins.
Because we believe that every life is important and we will not look
the other way while those vulnerable to vaccine injury and death are
being sacrificed in the name of the greater good.
Because when the State considers one of us to be expendable, then we are all considered expendable.
We are the daughters and sons of liberty. And we will defend freedom
of thought and conscience and religion in this great country of ours
because that is what it means to be an American.
Before it is too late, browse our site and go to NVICAdvocacy.org to learn how to become a vaccine freedom advocate in your state.
It’s your health. Your family. Your choice. Click to View and Access References
". . . If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow."
I am the Co-founder & President of the National Vaccine Information Center, the mother of three children, a writer and speaker on vaccination and informed consent issues.
by Harris Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder & president of NVIC. The first major book (1985, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) to critique safety flaws in the mass vaccination system and expose the dangers of the DPT vaccine, including the link between vaccine induced brain inflammation and autism. Referenced with scientific studies and more than 100 case histories of vaccine injury & death. There are some things that never change. A classic. Available by making a donation of $50 or more to the NVIC. Click on the image to donate and receive this book.
Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic
by Barbara Loe Fisher. A new book documenting the link between complications of infectious diseases and vaccines which can result in chronic inflammatory diseases and disorders such as autism, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, seizure disorders, severe allergies, asthma, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic illness. Anchored with more than 200 references. Available by making a donation of $25 or more to the NVIC. Click on the image to donate and receive this book.
Reforming Vaccine Policy & Law - A Guide
An illustrated 55-page guide published in 2014 by the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) that gives an overview of why vaccine safety and informed consent protections should be secured in all U.S. vaccine policies and laws.
Take the First Step: Explore Our Webpages that Inform and Empower
Visit Our Ask 8 Information Kiosk for Free Resources
240
years later, we find ourselves again fighting for freedom from
oppression because we have allowed the rise of a new ruling aristocracy,
an elitist class of privileged citizens who want the legal right to
judge, shame, segregate, discriminate against and punish fellow citizens
who do not share their beliefs. Nowhere is this truth more self
evident than in the oppressive implementation of one-size-fits-all
mandatory vaccination laws that fail to respect biodiversity or human
rights and crush citizen opposition, in violation of the informed
consent ethic and freedom of thought, speech, conscience and religious
belief. 
Virginia
families pushed back quickly and hard against the draconian bill that
would make Virginia the state with the most oppressive forced
vaccination law in the country. 
Bill of Rights and the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom and where,
over the years, the General Assembly has enacted the strongest religious
freedom and 
The
Act goes on to say that, “All attempts to influence it by temporal
punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations… are a departure
from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion...”
When
explaining religious freedom to his friends and colleagues, Thomas
Jefferson said that freedom of religion belonged to, “the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of
every denomination.” 
When
we defend the natural right to exercise freedom of thought, conscience
and religious belief, we are not called upon to talk about different
scientific hypotheses explaining how and why vaccines can cause injury
and death, or why the CDC is unaccountable and a whistleblower should be
subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the risks of a particular
vaccine. The arguments about vaccine science and who is right and who is
wrong about it will be argued for the next century.
However,
there is a strong Judeo-Christian tradition affirming the duty of those
who believe in God to follow their conscience. If you are a Christian,
you can find passages in the 
Mandatory
vaccination laws that violate human rights are the tip of the spear of
the political assault on cultural values and beliefs in America,
including freedom of conscience and religious belief. 
Because
the right of the State to tell us what to do to our bodies and the
bodies of our children ends where our right to protect our lives and our
children’s lives begins.
