The competing rights on vaccination

The new Illinois law that essentially requires a doctor's note to establish the informed consent of parents who don't want to have their children vaccinated for religious reasons doesn't go far enough.

Certainly, such parents - and even those who wrongheadedly fear that the vaccine makes their children more susceptible to autism - probably have the right to refuse to have their children vaccinated. By the same token, under its legitimate police powers, the state probably has the right - out of a due regard for the common good and the general welfare - to refuse unvaccinated students access to schools where they pose a proven, undeniable danger to other students and threaten the herd immunity that vaccinations have allowed us to build.

Noncompliant parents are welcome to start their own schools or to home-school their children.

Bob Foys

Inverness