WorldNetDaily loves endangering the health of its readers by promoting anti–vaccine propaganda, and it certainly isn’t going to stop now.
WND’s latest attempt is an Aug. 21 article by Bob Unruh that ropes his homeschooling friends into being anti-vaxxers:
A fight has erupted over a decision by bureaucrats in Colorado to go, according to critics, well beyond what the law allows and threaten parents of homeschoolers seeking exemptions from state vaccinations requirements for their children.
There was a plan before the legislature earlier this year that would have demanded homeschool parents sign forms stating things like, “My child/I may be at increased risk of developing …” and “Failure to follow the advice of a physician … who has recommended vaccines may endanger my child’s/my health or life and others who come into contact with my child/me.”
Officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association said they helped defeat the “attempts to invade families’ privacy.”
The proposal didn’t give parents the option – it simply demanded they make that particular political statement.
But, the HSLDA explains, demanding that parents “affirm that by exempting their child from immunizations they are endangering the life and health of that child … is at odds with some parents’ personal and/or religion beliefs.”
“By forcing parents to make this statement, the state of Colorado is unconstitutionally compelling speech.”
By making being anti-vaccine a “religious belief,” the HSLDA, with an assist from WND, is now effectively an anti-vaxxer group.
Unruh tries to spin that little troublesome aspect away, writing of the HSLDA: “The organization doesn’t necessarily advocate for or against vaccinations, but believes, ‘whether to immunize a child is a medical decision that HSLDA believes is best made by fully informed parents in accordance with the law and without undue interference or burdens imposed by the state.'”
So the HSLDA will defend every foolish thing a homeschooling parent declares just to stick it to purportedly intrusive state officials? That seems like a lack of standards, especially given the universally acknowledged benefits of vaccines and the indisputable risk one takes by not getting them. WND, being largely staffed by homeschooling parents, is so close to the HSLDA that it effectively acts as the group’s PR division, so Unruh (also a homeschooling parent) is simply doing stenography.
Indeed, this being an Unruh-written article published by WND, there’s no attempt whatsoever to tell the other side of the story. The new rules, approved last year, are designed to raise immunization rates in Colorado, which are among the lowest in the nation.