Compulsary vaccination vs. Parental rights: a false conflict of rights

Abstract

It is not unusual nowadays that some parents refuse their chindren to get vaccinated due to their religious beliefs or because they think it is a better way to protect their chindren health. This claim is allegedly supported by the freedom of religion and the right of parents to decide about some important aspects of their children’s life such as education or health care. This decisions may have effects on others and their right to health, thus turning the problem into a conflict of rights. This conflict, it is said, will justify the limitation of the parents right to decide about this issues. In this paper I will defend that there is no conflict at all and therefore no limitation of any right. I will defend a conception of rights that try to avoid the misunderstandings (about what rights are and how they work in legal reasoning) of a “conflicting conception of rights”. In other words, I will defend a conception of rights for which not leting the parents to put other’s health at risk is not a limitation of the right, but an action that lies beyond the boundaries of the right.