TWS vaccinate children against the will of their parents.
Affirmative
1. It is immoral to deprive children of the
benefit of vaccines
a. People should have a right to
life
 Vaccines drastically
reduce the threats to
life, so should be done
b. Govt has a responsibility to
take care of citizens that can’t
take care of themselves
 Children can’t take care
of themselves because
their parents control
everything & refuse to
vaccinate them
2. Immoral to keep endangering people
who can’t get vaccines
a. For people who can’t get
vaccinated (e.g. infants,
people w/ certain medical
conditions, etc.), herd
immunity is the only thing
protecting them
b. Because these people can’t
protect themselves w/
vaccines, the govt & the rest of
the population should help
3. Vaccines are beneficial:
a. It provides personal
immunisation, so it’s beneficial
to the people who get
vaccinated
b. It provides herd immunity, so
it’s beneficial to people who
can’t get vaccinated (e.g.
infants)
Negative
1. Freedom of choice
a. People should be able to
choose what goes inside their
children’s bodies
 Some people have very
important religious
beliefs that we should
respect
b. We let parents choose a lot of
things for their kids that might
not be the best for their health
 E.g. junk food, 2nd-
hand smoking, etc.
c. Safety concerns
 It is legitimate for
parents to put more
emphasis on the side
effects of vaccinating
(an active choice) vs
side effects of non-
vaccination (passive)
2. Importance of religion
a. Often a lot of religions prohibit
certain medical procedure,
including vaccinations, and
those beliefs should be
respected
b. Religion is an incredibly
important part of people’s
identity, because it dictates the
way they live & what happens
to them after they die
c. It is often the solitary moral
compass that these people live
by
3. Infant mortality rate will increase
a. The most strict anti-vaxxers
tend to be incredibly religious
or otherwise opinionated
parents
b. Therefore, parents will have
kids at home (instead of the
hospital) and hide their kids
from the govt
c. This is unsafe, for both the
 kids and the person giving
birth
4. Bad outcomes for children
a. Parents, in their pursuit of
keeping their children secret
from the govt, will refuse to
take their children to schools
(homeschooling them instead),
and will refuse to take their
children to the doctor’s for
anything, because then they’ll
be forced to be vaccinated
5. Traumatising to young children
a. Kids generally form their
opinions based on what their
parents have told them
 These kids are also
likely to be anti-vax
b. Even if their parents aren’t,
some kids might just be anti-
vax
c. Incredibly traumatic to “inject
kids with poison”, if they
believe that is what is
happening
d. Might need to restrain kids,
etc.

Notes:

This debate has very clear clashes, which don’t necessarily disprove the opposing argument.

The responsibility of the govt vs the right of parents to control their kids is an obvious clash, but
there needs to be explicit reasons why we ought care about one more than the other.

These reasons could be: on the aff, that the right to parental control / right to religion only exists
if the child is alive in the first place. That is to say, all other rights stem from the right to life
therefore that right must be given priority. You could also say that the govt is in a unique
position, in terms of access to non-biased scientific study, and resources that make mass
vaccinations possible, which increase their culpability if they continue to let children stay
unvaccinated. On the neg, it’s a little harder, but you could say that parents care about their
children more than the govt. They personally invest their lives into raising their children, they
often make huge sacrifices, etc. which maybe gives them more rights over their kids than the
govt has.

The second clash is in the welfare of the children. On the aff, you would have to mitigate the
extent of the capacity of parents to hide their children, and why it’s therefore less important than
the harms of unvaccinated children. You could say that on both sides, the children of anti-vax
parents will probably have a bad quality of life, but only on the aff can you save all the people
who cannot be vaccinated (infants, etc.). If the neg tries to model this out by saying for e.g. they
would support banning unvaccinated kids from going to school, then obviously that also
mitigates their harms about parents hiding their kids.