New Mom Asks If She'd Be Wrong To Vaccinate Her Baby Against Her Husband's Wishes
Now that consequences are once again life or death, there's really only one answer.
Olena Yakobchuk | Shutterstock The debate over the safety of vaccinations has reached a point where once nearly eradicated diseases are now back with a vengeance. But that hasn't seemed to change very many minds among those who oppose them, and it's put one mom online in a position that is likely familiar to way too many parents these days: Having to weigh betraying her husband against protecting her baby's life.
The mom wants to vaccinate her newborn against her husband's wishes.
The science has never been on anti-vaxxers' side, and most of the central claims from the movement's leaders have been thoroughly debunked. Nevertheless, anti-vaccine sentiment and distrust have been growing, especially since the pandemic.
The sneering judgment and condescension parents with vaccine concerns usually receive from doctors and the scientific community certainly doesn't help. When you treat people like idiots, they will simply go to people who don't. And in the case of this issue, those people are mostly an array of conspiracy theorists and opportunistic liars on the internet.
Still, at this point, vaccine disinformation is having such catastrophic consequences that even the outspokenly anti-vaxx Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., urged parents to vaccinate their kids against measles amid deadly outbreaks in several states. That reversal should have been something of a wake-up call.
But it doesn't seem to have been for all too many parents. This mom on Reddit is a perfect example. Her baby has received all his recommended vaccinations at birth, 2 months, and 4 months. But something happened to her husband in the interim. His views on vaccinations have abruptly shifted, and he is adamant that their baby's 6-month vaccinations not take place.
The new mom's husband has begun parroting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
Seemingly overnight, her husband has gone from consenting to normal vaccinations to spouting the most tried-and-true conspiracy theories about the treatments, telling her that the CDC and Big Pharma have joined together to discredit anyone who raises concerns about vaccine safety, a common accusation in that movement.
She has countered his claims with the usual facts. "I rebut his arguments by stating… that vaccines are one of the most studied and regulated medical tools in existence. They are backed by decades of global research, real-world data, and the consensus of every major medical organization — including the CDC, WHO, AAP, and countless pediatricians who vaccinate their own children."
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None of it has changed him. Even a one-on-one conversation with their sympathetic pediatrician didn't faze him. He accused her of simply parroting what she was "told" to say. By whom, of course, he did not specify.
His own family backs him up, however, particularly because he has an autistic sibling who they are convinced acquired that condition from vaccination, another conspiracy theory that has been debunked by the scientific community. So the mom finds herself painted into a corner where she must choose between doing what's best for her baby or betraying her husband's trust and facing the repercussions.
People were unanimous: She must put her baby first.
This mom seems to already know her answer—she wrote that she's even told her husband they will not be having any kids after he insisted their second child not have any vaccinations at all. She knows what she needs to do, but she seems to just be looking for validation from others.
And boy, did she get it. Redditors were emphatic that she really has no choice here. With deadly diseases like measles, whooping cough, and even polio, once thought to be eradicated, becoming ever more common and killing children again, there is only one choice to be made.
"Think about it this way," one wrote. "If your baby gets sick or injured and your husband decided he didn't trust doctors… would you be [wrong] for taking your baby to a doctor anyway?"
Others were even more blunt, telling her to call a lawyer if she has to, while another plainly wrote, "the husband would rather have a dead kid than an autistic kid." This kind of extreme rhetoric isn't actually helpful. The husband's concerns are motivated by love, no matter how wrongheaded they are.
Still, it puts the vaccine issue in pretty stark perspective. The fear of a condition not even found to be caused by vaccines is convincing all too many parents to endanger their children's lives, and those chickens are now coming home to roost with rising death tolls. And as conspiracy theorists love to say, "there are no coincidences."
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
