Critique of Compulsory Vaccination in the Czech Republic: Characteristics of Parents and Discursive Frames They Use
Abstract
This paper focuses on parents' critical perspectives on immunization in the Czech Republic. Its goal is to present the sociodemographic characteristics of parents with critical attitudes to immunization as well as the argumentative discourses they mobilize.
The text is based on a questionnaire survey of parents who are active critics of immunization practice. 372 respondents participated in the survey. Open-ended questions were used to invite the parents to share their attitudes on vaccination and their motivations to refuse or critique the practice.
The paper starts by presenting a sociodemographic profile of the parents who participated in the questionnaire survey. The results indicate that critical debates on the practice of compulsory vaccination are primarily attended by better-educated women living in different parts of the Czech Republic.
Subsequently, the central part of the analysis deals with the respondents' answers to open-ended questions about their motivations to refuse/postpone vaccination. Three distinct ways the parents framed their critical attitudes to vaccination were identified in the analysis.
The most salient frame, "biomedical discourse of risk", exploited the concepts and principles of biomedicine but deviated from the dominant interpretation of immunization as public good, instead emphasizing related individual risks. The second frame, "discourse of holistic health", was much less salient.
Referring to the principles of holistic medicine, it emphasized the role of lifestyle at the expense of medical control of the body. Finally, "activist discourse" was another less frequently mentioned frame.
It argued against vaccination as part of a more general critique of the ways the health care system operates and government interferes with individual freedoms.