NO SHOTS FOR YOU
Our Iowa legislators are in the process of passing legislation which is certainly unneeded. They are in the process of deciding that kids should no longer be required to have vaccinations to attend school; this being based presumably upon religious grounds. This even includes polio with which I am intimately familiar as my brother had second grade at home in bed.
There have been previous efforts to exclude the requirement of vaccinations from the child endangerment statute found at 726.6 of the Iowa Code. The current exemption is that if you "can show that such treatment would conflict with the tenets and practices of a recognized religious denomination of which the person is an adherent or member". The proposed legislation appears to add to or increase the ability of parents to deny vaccinating their children.
Now being a criminal defense attorney, I vehemently disagree with any efforts to reduce crime - - the more crime the better. This piece of legislation is contrary to the intent of the current criminal law of Iowa specifically the said child endangerment crime which is enforced vigorously. We simply can't be excluding certain activities from the child endangerment statute whenever someone comes up with the idea that one form of endangerment is ok but another is not.
For instance, we get people charged with child endangerment all the time for driving with kids in the car while intoxicated. The idea, of course, is that this particular course of conduct is more risky to the health and safety of the children involved than it would be with a sober driver. Having driven my entire adult life and then some, I have long come to the conclusion that children are in danger simply being in a moving vehicle with the usual adult operator, intoxicated or not. We have apparently determined that the risk of injury is increased with intoxication, by what amount or on what basis is undetermined, but a crime nevertheless.
The same should apply to vaccinations. The legislature shouldn't be able to reduce my job opportunities by making it legal to put your kid at risk for measles or polio or other communicable disease. I'm certainly not a statistician but it would seem rather obvious your kid's risk for serious medical issues is significantly increased when he or she is not vaccinated. Wait till you see a resurgence of polio.
As a criminal defense attorney, consistency is an issue and we don't seem to have much here. One should not be prosecuted for criminal conduct when your neighbor does not get prosecuted for similar conduct. So, risking serious medical issues by driving while drunk (driving period if you ask me) can put you in jail, but allowing your kid to get measles, or polio, or such other diseases that can also kill them does seem somewhat inconsistent. Why should I be limited to defending a drunk driver for child endangerment and not a parent of an unvaccinated kid?
As I said at the beginning here, the criminal defense bar should be concerned with this new development. After all, our legislature has been making new crimes every year and now they want to be contrary. We have had good feelings about state government these past few years as a result of all these new crimes and increased punishments being enacted - and now this! Before we enact such legislation as now proposed, let's give it a little thought.
Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo
