The calculus of getting a flu shot is pretty straightforward: If I don’t, I could get sick — and potentially get a bunch of other people sick too. I work in an open-air office, eat in crowded restaurants and take the subway. But here’s the thing: I don’t want a flu shot. I don’t feel right about it. My mother, an M.D., who now practices alternative medicine, was — and is — anti-vaccine. Like a kid inheriting his parents’ faith, I grew up with a strong sense of that value system. Am I ethically obligated to get a flu shot? BEN REININGA, NEW YORK
This will seem like a lame response, but it’s the only one I can give. Should you get a flu shot? Yes. It’s more socially responsible, and thus more ethical (relative to doing the opposite). But are you obligated to do so? You are not.
It’s one thing to directly put others in harm’s way (like entering a crowded workplace when you know you’re already sick). But your question is different. Your question involves a potentiality. It’s certainly possible that not getting a flu shot could affect other people, but that possibility is not even close to absolute. And it’s just not reasonable to make every personal decision based on what might theoretically happen to a stranger. You’re a person, too. You have the right to decide what’s injected into your body. Personal freedom is not limitless, but it certainly extends to the elective medical procedures you choose for yourself. If those around you are worried that you’ll infect them with the flu, they should get their own flu shots (simply because people who view the world through your lens clearly do exist).
