Reasons to Accept Vaccine Refusers in Primary Care

Vaccine refusal forces us to confront tensions between many values, including scientific expertise, parental rights, children’s best interests, social responsibility, public trust, and community health. Recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable and emerging infectious diseases have amplified these issues. The prospect of a coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine signals even more friction on the horizon. In this contentious sociopolitical landscape, it is therefore more important than ever for clinicians to identify ethically justified responses to vaccine refusal.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says dismissing families who continue to refuse vaccines is an “acceptable option,”¹ but some practices have gone further by not accepting vaccine refusers as patients at all.^2,3 The phenomenon of nonacceptance has been underexplored; in both empirical studies and ethics analyses, researchers largely focus on dismissal.^4–7 In this article, we first criticize arguments for nonacceptance that invoke a supposed right to choose one’s patients. We then argue that nonacceptance is problematic because (1) some of its motivations are intrinsically immoral, (2) it does not appear to accomplish some of its goals, and (3) even when nonacceptance does accomplish its goals, it fails to appropriately balance the various values it implicates. Throughout the article, we engage with the existing ethics literature about dismissal and conclude that even if dismissal is sometimes justifiable, nonacceptance is not.

Address correspondence to Mark C. Navin, PhD, Department of Philosophy, Oakland University, 746 Mathematics and Science Center, 146 Library Dr, Rochester, MI 48309-4479. E-mail: navin{at}oakland.edu