If you’re a person who for some reason can’t get a vaccine because of medical issues like allergies, then this isn’t for you. But if you are a person with the resources and the money to get a vaccine, but you don’t want to because you “don’t feel like it” or because it’ll “give your child autism”, then listen up.

Some people still don’t get vaccinated and because of them, diseases like measles are making an unnecessary comeback. I’m usually very respectful of other peoples’ opinions, but I can’t fathom why you wouldn’t want to do what’s best for your child, especially when it’s proven to work. Will it 100% prevent them from getting measles? Maybe not 100%. But will it save their lives and help them from contracting worse diseases? Yes.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), from the beginning of the year to February 7, there have been 101 cases of measles across the United States. In another page, it’s explicitly stated that “nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles before there was a vaccine, and hundreds died from it each year. Today, most doctors have never seen a case of measles.”

Wow, it’s almost like there’s a connection between getting vaccines and not getting measles!

The reasons that I’ve heard for people not vaccinating their children just make my head hurt from trying to comprehend how someone could think that. First off, if you’d rather have a dead child than an autistic one, you may want to rethink why you want to or why you became a parent in the first place. A parent is someone who takes care of a child, no matter what they’re diagnosed with. If you have the resources to do whatever you can to keep that child healthy, then you should use them and if you can’t love a child no matter what, then rethink being a parent. Don’t take your wack ideas and exert them on a child who doesn’t deserve to die.

Not vaccinating your child doesn’t just put them at risk, it impacts more people than you’d think. Consider people with compromised immune systems. People with conditions like cancer don’t deserve to be harmed just because someone decided that they didn’t want to get a vaccine. Like almost anything else in life, you need to think about people besides yourself. By not getting a vaccine, you’re not only harming yourself, but potentially the lives of people all around you. That’s selfish, unreasonable and unjustifiable.

Another unreasonable thing is trying to defend your argument. The study that connected autism and vaccines was debunked and there’s thousands of sources that support vaccines. Enough support for vaccines is already around you: they’re in your friends, your family, the people that you pass every day on the street. How much credible information is there that tells you that essential oils and no action at all is going to cure your five year old’s measles?

If you don’t have the resources to get vaccinated, then that’s a different problem. But if you have access to a doctor, hospital, etc. that can provide you with a life-saving vaccine, you should get vaccinated. Not getting one because you’re afraid it’ll make your children have autism or it’ll corrupt your body is unreasonable and can have devastating consequences.