ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on coercive vaccination laws can be justified by general political principles that diverse members of society have reasons to accept. It also focuses on the sorts of reasons people have for accepting the three general principles for state coercion that argues can justify coercive vaccination. Two important values may seem to ground a definitive rejection of coercive vaccination policies: informed consent and parents' rights. Soft paternalism may count in favor of requiring vaccine refusers to attend education sessions about vaccines. Routine vaccination avoids that risk at a reasonable cost. On author's view, parental refusal of routine vaccines is like letting a child play in a busy street, and coercive vaccination is like a police officer driving a child home. The fact that a parent believes that vaccine refusal is the best choice for their child does not mean that it is. State coercion may help to solve an assurance problem in the case of mass vaccination programs.
