Should Religious parents be exempted from getting their children necessary vaccines.

Due to the character limit of 10,000 characters, simply refuting my opponent's case (as it is quite short) would take up very little space. As such, I will go ahead and defend my points. Please note that this doesn't give any advantage to me, but actually allows my opponent to refute my arguments in the next round. Thus, this allows more debate without imposing any unfair advantage to either opponent. -- I will begin with my opponent's case, and then move on to my own.Observations:1. "Required by public schools" will remain.2. I also agree you don't have full BoP. I explained this. 60-40 sounds fair, if that's how my opponent wishes to distribute it.However, it would be typical for the full weight to rest on my opponent, as he is promoting a shift from the status quo. Argument I: "I think that if kids are required to get vaccines that there shouldn't be religious exemptions."1. My gives not logical reasoning behind his argument for this point.2. Religious exemptions should be permitted, as I have and will demonstrate.Argument II: "The parents risk getting their kids seriously sick for there personal beliefs."1. It is a parent's job to do what they see best for their children.2. Their job description is as follows: "Fill bellies, maintain home, cradle, protect, teach, guide, listen, empathize, communicate, accept, trust, check up on, love, discipline, role model, doctor, clean and wash, (and then clean and wash some more) tolerate . . . and enjoy." [1]3. They are the parent and subsequently have the authority to do what they feel is best for their children. If they feel that vaccinations are uneccesary for religious reasons, it is their choice.4. The correct use of "there" would be "their" in the context of the sentence my opponent used. [2]With my opponent's case refuted, I will move to my own, and his arguments against it.Contention I: Religious exemption is already permitted."There isn't really much to debunk here you basically just pointed out that most places allow religious exemptions. Just because most places allow it doesn't make it correct."1. Given that it is of a majority accepted lends evidence towards the idea that it *should* be accepted.2. My opponent proves nothing with his argument and uses no evidence. Thus, we remain with the only side that provided an argument. (Pro)3. I have and will demonstrate in other contentions as to how exemption should be permitted, and there should not be a change to the status quo.Contention II: Some vaccinations contain components which can violate religious beliefs."Yes it's true that there are ingredients that can violate the parents religious convictions. However when you are talking about getting first graders vaccinated, it's irrelevant. Because first grader don't have a religion. They have whatever there parents tell them they have. A first grader hasn't but any thought into it. He's whatever his parents tell him to be."1. My opponent concedes that these vaccinations violate religious freedom, whether of the parent or the child.2. My opponent earlier agreed that the resolution should refer to what is "required by public school." By default, this would include every grades from kindergarten to senior year.3. Individuals are capable of choosing their religion in a majority of those grades.4. Moreover, children are often products of their environment. Logic demonstrates that, on general, if the parent is religious, the child will be religious as well.5. Parental guidance is necessary to help children grow and mature. Teens, and even children aren't fully matured until they are older. [3][4] Thus, parents can and should guide their children based on their beliefs (including religion)."However my bigger issue with it, is that I don't think the religion of the parents of one kid should be allowed to endanger the health of all the other kids in that school. You address this later in your argument saying something along the lines of " If my kid doesn't get vaccinated it doesn't matter if your kid is. The issue with this is that vaccines are not 100% effective. They work very well and everyone should get them, but sometimes they fail. So if one kid doesn't get vaccinated because his parents don't want him to and he gets say chicken pox, well he is a danger to other kids even if they have there vaccination because if the vaccination they got didn't work, well now that kid has gotten someone else sick because his parents don't personally like that vaccination."1. My oppnent has yet to mention a single instance in which religious exemption has resulted in getting other children fatally sick.2. My opponent also concedes that vaccines are not 100% effective, and that they sometimes fail.3. My opponent has only established a correlation between sickenss and non-vaccination, but has not linked the cause to religious exemption.4. Because of the lack of examples supporting his/her reasoning, you would vote for the status quo (including religious exemption)."However even that isn't my biggest issue with religious exemption. My biggest issue is that parents are legally allowed to put there kid's health in danger because they personally don't like what's in the vaccine. If the parents don't want to get there kids the measles vaccine because they're religion doesn't like it and the kid gets measles then the parents religion put the child in danger. ColeTrain would you honest say that parents should be allow to risk getting there five and six year old children getting sick and even possibly dying all because the parents don't like it. It's the same reason i don't think faith healing should be allowed. Because the parents religion can't be used as a justification to put a child in danger."1. My opponent has not established the link between correlation and causation.2. Correlation =/= Causation3. Thus, my opponent cannot continue to say that religious exemption has *any* effect on others getting sick.4. Most religious individuals who decline vaccinations either believe in divine healing or still go to the doctor to treat diseases.5. Putting children at risk does not fit into this model if the children are actually still treated at the doctor or believe in divine healing already.6. His claim that I support putting 5-6 year olds in danger is totally bogus. I support divine healing, but these people also sometimes go to doctors. Moreover, it is not only 5-6 year olds that are affected. Net benefit is utilitarian, and thus, so is my position.Contention III: Religious exemption is protected under the US Constitution."You say religious exemption is protected under the first amendment. Well I disagree. Here is why. The first amendment protection is only when religion doesn't conflict with other peoples freedom or harm others. As I showed above not vaccinating your kid puts that kid and others around him in danger. So your religion is harming others and so is not protected under the first amendment."1. My opponent cites no interpretation except his own.2. I provided my interpretation, backed by Cornell University.3. The first amendment protects the free exercise or religion. Prohibiting that in any manner is an infringement on individual rights.Contention IV: Vaccinations aren't totally safe."Yes it's true vaccines can cause side effects. For most people it doesn't but it can. I am in favor of medical exemptions. If getting a vaccine poses a significant risk to a kids health and safety then yes they can be exempted. However that is rare and for everyone else they should get vaccinated. Also you bring up the vaccine and autism link. This has been disproved many times and in fact the author of that study lost his medical license and got thrown in jail because the study was so bad. So that's invalid."1. My opponent concedes; vaccinations do cause side effects and aren't totally safe.2. Medical exemption is irrelevant. This debate is about religious exemption. Presenting a counterplan in the Pro position, in the 2nd round, is not allowed.3. I was only referencing the RETRACTED study to show that there have been studies conducted about the topic.Contention V: Flawed arguments envelop anti-exemption."I have addressed everything in this argument. But I will address one thing. You say that if people accept the risks then let them take them. However this doesn't work because we are talking about kids. So the parents are not the one who are taking the risk. They are forcing there kids sometimes as young as six to accept life threatening risks. If a adult doesn't want to get vaccinated I don't care. However parent forcing little kids to take life threatening risks is unacceptable and should not be allowed."1. As I've said before, it is the parents moral and social responsibility to care for and guide their children as they see fit.2. If religious exemption is what the parents see best fit for their child, then that is what should happen.3. As I have demonstrated multiple times, in multiple ways, religious exemption should be permitted.Conclusion:I have explicitly demonstrated both moral and pragmatic grounds to preserve religous exemption in regards to vaccinations for students attending public schools. Thus, I have fulfilled my burden of proof and upheld my side of the resolution.Sources:[1] http://www.easternflorida.edu...[2] http://wsuonline.weber.edu...[3] http://hrweb.mit.edu...[4] http://www.livescience.com...