At work at English

Brooke Coulter

Year 8 English

A speech by Brooke Coulter - Year 8 English 2021

Steve Milligan

Teacher - English

Brooke demonstrated all of the skills in the criteria for this task and achieved the ‘mastering’ level of proficiency in persuasive writing. Her speech struck an excellent balance in its rhetoric by using appeals to both logic and pathos, while developing her credibility with cited sources and refined research. Excellent topical speech Brooke!

Are Vaccine Mandates Ethical?

Brooke Coulter

Year 8

Did you know that after introduction of the tetanus vaccine in 1953, the mortality rate has dropped nearly 90%? Vaccines have practically abolished many deadly diseases such as polio and smallpox from countries and saved countless lives. But, given that most of the time they require herd immunity to eliminate disease, is it fair or moral for governments to mandate their populations to get vaccinated in the interest of public health? I am of the opinion that, in most circumstances, vaccine mandates are important and necessary for community health, and therefore could be considered as ethical. I think that programs like the ‘no jab, no play’ are basically mandates – even though you still technically have a choice. So, when I say mandate, I mean these kinds of things as well.

First of all, vaccine mandates protect those who can’t get vaccinated because of health, age or other various factors. Herd immunity is a big factor in protecting these people, everyone who can get vaccinated protects these vulnerable people in our community - mandating vaccines is ethical in this case because it's preventing the general population from harming the unprotected others. Are vaccine mandates any different from seatbelt rulings or drivers licenses? The government is forcing you to do something because it affects the safety of you and other people, it is for the ‘greater good’.

Secondly, vaccine mandates, over long periods of time, are cost saving to governments, the healthcare system and average peoples wages and productivity. A 2016 study conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that for every dollar invested in vaccination in the world’s 94 lowest-income countries, around $16 USD can be expected to be saved in healthcare costs, lost wages and lost productivity due to illness or death. Vaccines have plenty of indirect economic benefit, and therefore mandating the vaccines helps everyone by saving the government money and helping the healthcare system work well when you need it.

Some people feel that it's not fair for the government to mandate vaccines because it's their right to not get vaccinated, and that it's unlawful for them to be discriminated against because of their vaccination status. Sure, you have a right to make decisions for yourself but at the same time, I have a right to not die from a preventable disease like measles or Covid just because you feel that almost 100 years of successful usage and research of vaccines is discredited from your research bias and Facebook groups! The more rights that you have, the more responsible with those rights you have to be, and not getting vaccinated is endagering the lives of so many others that I don’t think that many people would consider that a responsible decision. Mandates should be in place, purely because of the benefit to public health that these ‘anti-vaxxers’ ignore.

Overall, I believe that vaccine mandates can be ethical and justified if the threat to public health is exigent and that they are important in protecting those who are vulnerable in our communities. Recent events with Covid19 demonstrate the importance of vaccine programs and how our government and society needs to take a proactive approach to vaccine rollouts; mandating vaccines or restricting freedoms of those who don’t get vaccinated – particularly when human life is on the line. It is the ethical thing to do.

Bibliography

At work at English Brooke Coulter

Year 8 English

Are Vaccine Mandates Ethical?

At work at English

Brooke Coulter