Parents Have Turned Against Coercive Vaccination: A Turning Point in the Battle for Health Freedom?
There is a broad, concerted attempt by media, alongside state and local governments, to mislead and mischaracterize a large portion of the American people who have a very simple demand: full autonomy over medical decisions for their children. If a parent doubts the wisdom of forced medicine, or the veracity of the data backing up the childhood vaccination schedule, they are at best portrayed as an isolated and misinformed subject of pity. At worst, they are a dangerously bad parent, a sinister anti-science activist, or a grifter, driving the country back into the Dark Ages at the expense of all of our health.
However, this attempt to marginalize and attack parents is actually targeting the majority of parents and parents-to-be, as new rigorous surveys have shown. A study released quietly this summer has used clear language (a rarity in polling) to ask parents—will you accept all vaccines mandated and recommended by the government and local schools, or will you delay some, refuse some, or refuse all? Less than 40% of parents of young children and soon-to-be-parents plan to fully follow the required vaccination schedule (plus recommended, repeated shots like for covid-19 and influenza).[1]The rest are either planning to delay, refuse some or all of the shots, or are undecided on the matter. Even though covid-19 shots have been removed since this study was conducted from the formal CDC childhood schedule that states typically rely upon for their own school requirements, these results are like an earthquake to the public health establishment.
Usually, polling is very slippery and leading in its wording on this question, to manufacture the image that all parents are fine with the entire schedule, while what they are agreeing to is an idealized scenario of perfect safety and efficacy. But this study shows that when it comes to their own families and the reality as they see it, parents increasingly see it as their duty to decide what medicines or injections their children take, regardless of what list the state or CDC might put out.
This far more directly-worded survey shows not only that the ideas of health autonomy and freedom are increasingly popular, but that the mask of coercive public health is slipping off. The young parents that lived through the covid-19 lies, abuses, lockdowns and bizarre "warp speed" vaccine development are applying those experiences to their assessment of the medical system as a whole.
Given that the media and government, at several levels, are fighting the majority of parents who question the schedule rather than merely a minority, it is only a matter of time before parents realize that they have not only the power, but the right and the duty to demand full medical and health autonomy for their children. It is this natural duty to safeguard the well-being of their children that parents must embrace first and foremost, rather than waiting for privileges to be granted and by extension, potentially taken away again later by government.
The Road to the Majority's Embrace of Personal Medical Autonomy
For decades, the "scientific consensus" on vaccination for school children according to the exact CDC schedule was that all the shots on the list were critical for our safety as a public, and full adherence to the schedule is the only way to proceed, for every child, with extremely rare medical exceptions even for children experiencing terrible side effects. This was one-size-fits-all, authoritarian medicine by definition.
However, this was a poor strategy from the start—the very rigidity of this draconian demand will likely be its ultimate undoing. Any strategy which uses intimidation and scolding, which recognizes no parent’s rights, nor individual physiological variation among healthy children, was bound to eventually break under its own weight.
Parents may not pick and choose which injections their child will receive; they are still told. If you waver from the schedule, you may be investigated for child abuse, have your children taken, or in a best-case scenario, your children will be barred from school and school activities.
Physicians were told explicitly to make it as difficult as possible to get a medical exemption from any shots, and to continuously re-verify the child for any qualifying reasons. Corporate-funded trade associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) argue to this day for a ban on all religious and philosophical exemptions, and even instruct its readers and physician members not to participate in helping families acquire non-medical exemptions, an exceptionally immoral and meddling overreach into the private lives of pediatricians who feel compassion as human beings for their fellows.[2]
Meanwhile, the corporate, pharma-sponsored media, allegedly providing a service to customers, has been in fact misrepresenting and shaming a majority of those customers.
The government, allegedly working for a majority of the public, is implementing a punitive program using access to school as a cudgel, that punishes parents (and their kids) for acting according to their conscience, and making informed decisions on the well-being of their children. Many states are even sliding toward more authoritarian and coercive measures rather than fewer, and ignoring the CDC's modest loosening of the requirements for shots like the covid-19 mRNA injection. Many of the coastal states[3] have entered into alliances with each other to continue to require the same vaccination schedules[4], and to take advice from industry funded groups like the AAP.
If a casual news reader were to pick up a newspaper or pull up their favorite corporate news site, how would those publications portray Americans who are skeptical of the full vaccine schedule and vaccine mandates in general? Most likely, they would be painted as a small but dangerous minority who need to be actively suppressed, re-educated, or even jailed. A considerable part of America certainly agrees. During lockdowns, when asked in polls, large percentages agreed that criticizing the covid shot should be illegal (48% of democrats), parents who didn't get their child injected with the mRNA shot should have their children taken (29% of same), the families should be placed into camps (45%), or placed on house arrest (59%).
Still a Difficult Battle Ahead for Autonomy in Medical Decision-Making
Thankfully, those ideas are waning. American parents, and those who expect to be parents soon, have rejected the idea that their children will be forced to take every shot mandated by their local schools, their state health boards and federal officers.
Unfortunately, even with the sea-change in opinion as shown in this honest polling approach, the system of coerced medicine has weathered many storms and remains firmly in place. It remains so even after the disastrous covid-19 injections were removed from the required childhood list this year (though still recommended in some states for kids), in a meek attempt to merely return back to the pre-2020 "normal". Even after one notably dangerous rotavirus vaccine was removed from the schedule for injuring infants over a decade ago, a new one quickly took its place (that replacement personally enriched one of the CDC's main vaccine advisors, Paul Offit[5]) and few in the media or government batted an eyelash and considered perhaps there are other dangerous shots on the schedule.
But over time, the media scolding and paternalistic government demands matter less and less. Parental discontent is building with being forced to inject children with a long list of corporate products, under government pressure and coercion.
Even more insulting and disturbing is the lack of legal liability for death or injury that can result from these injections, thanks to decades-old legislation providing immunity to vaccine makers. While state laws dictate health statutes and regulations for citizens, federal legislation has brought us the double tragedy of civil liability immunity for manufacturers, coupled with ongoing emergency law declarations under the PREP Act (still in force for covid-19, pandemic influenza, zika, ebola, and others). The PREP Act expands a similar liability shield to providers, administrators, and government officials of all kinds, while adding additional protections from scrutiny to the manufacturers. This is quite obviously not a situation that builds confidence for any parents paying attention.
Health Freedom Defense Fund believes that until these laws at all levels reflects parents' demands for full autonomy in medical decision-making for their children, the pressure will only build. The federal government needs to make clear that it does not, and in fact cannot, stand in between a parent and their child's medical decisions. Parents themselves can and should join with state-level efforts to improve the legal landscape at home by using tools like the Model Medical Freedom Act based on successful efforts this year in Idaho to enshrine medical freedom in law[6]. With more than half of parents already planning to flout the government's orders on vaccines, true change will only arrive at the moment these parents realize their own power, and demand final say in all health choices related to their children.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2836417 doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.20667
[2] https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/32619/AAP-Nonmedical-exemptions-to-school-immunization?autologincheck=redirected
[3] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/03/california-oregon-and-washington-to-launch-new-west-coast-health-alliance-to-uphold-scientific-integrity-in-public-health-as-trump-destroys-cdcs-credibility/
[4] https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/about/press/pr2025/announce-northeast-public-health-collaborative.page
[5] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-independent-are-vaccine-defenders/
[6] https://healthfreedomdefense.org/idaho-leads-the-nation-with-landmark-medical-freedom-legislation/
