Anti-vaxxers (primarily rich and middle class white women, of course) are calling themselves “civil rights activists”, comparing their ignorance about vaccines to the Black civil rights marches of the 1960s. And Andrew Fakewield (*) is their leader, the Maudlin Ruthless Killer of children.
The only thing those buffoons have in common with civil rights marchers of the 1960s is polio, measles, and smallpox, because those diseases hadn’t yet been eradicated or brought under control when King was marching. From Politico:
Anti-vaccine protesters are likening themselves to civil rights activists
A chorus of mostly white women sang the gospel song “We Shall Overcome” in the California State Capitol, an anthem of the civil rights movement. Mothers rallied outside the governor’s office and marched through Capitol corridors chanting “No segregation, no discrimination, yes on education for all!” Some wore T-shirts that read “Freedom Keepers.”
But this wasn’t about racial equality. In the nation’s most diverse state, protesters opposed to childhood vaccine mandates — many from affluent coastal areas — had co-opted the civil rights mantle from the 1960s, insisting that their plight is comparable to what African Americans have suffered from segregationist policies.
(* Fakewield, that great spoonerism; he’s fake who claims to wield a medical license.)
Apropos of nothing much, Orac writes in verbose detail about this insulting claim, SB 276 is now law, and antivaxers are not the “new civil rights movement”.
It’s always wise to listen to what Orac has to say however annoyed Avon is at Orac’s verbosity, shutting it up too soon is always a mistake that will lead you into danger .
I firmly believe that the parents of a deliberately-unvaccinated child who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease should be prosecuted for manslaughter — and the parents of a deliberately-unvaccinated child who transmits a vaccine-preventable disease to a person who is medically unfit to be vaccinated should be prosecuted for (attempted) murder.
It’s the only way of getting through to some people.