Class, gender, and the conscientious objector to vaccination, 1898-1907
Class, gender, and the conscientious objector to vaccination, 1898-1907
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DOI：
10.1086/386254
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发表时间：
2002-01-01
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Durbach, N
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Durbach, N
1898年，在强制婴儿接种天花疫苗45年后，英国议会通过了一项法案，允许父母“选择退出”强制接种制度。1898年《疫苗接种法》引入了一项良心条款，规定反对接种疫苗的父母有权向地方法官申请豁免，以获得出于良心拒服兵役的证明。这为工人阶级和中下层阶级的反疫苗主义者提供了一定程度的救济，使他们免于因不遵守法律而遭受的反复罚款和监禁的威胁。到1898年底，已经签发了20多万份出于良心拒服兵役的证明。其中许多是在豁免人数超过疫苗接种人数的反疫苗接种据点批准的，但出于良心反对接种疫苗绝不仅限于这些地区。1907年，一项修正的良心条款获得通过，这使得出于良心拒服兵役者的地位变得更容易获得，国家豁免率上升到所有出生婴儿的25%。由于申请这些豁免证明的大多数申请人来自工人阶级，其中许多是妇女，这些行为引发了一场关于良心的阶级和性别性质以及出于良心拒服兵役的含义的全国性辩论。因此，1898年至1907年这几年是现代主体和公民形成过程中的一个重要时刻。因为，正如关于出于良心反对接种疫苗的辩论所揭示的那样，究竟谁有权声称拥有良心及其伴随的权利，这本身就是一个有争议的问题。
In 1898, after forty-five years of enforcing mandatory infant smallpox vaccination, the British parliament passed an act to allow parents to “opt out” of the compulsory system. The 1898 Vaccination Act introduced a conscience clause that entitled parents who objected to the practice of vaccination to claim certificates of conscientious objection by applying to a magistrate for an exemption. This provided working- and lower-middle-class anti-vaccinationists a measure of relief from the repeated fines they had suffered for noncompliance with the law, and from the threat of imprisonment. By the end of 1898, over 200,000 certificates of conscientious objection had been issued. Many of these were granted in anti-vaccination strongholds where exemptions outnumbered vaccinations, but conscientious objection to vaccination was by no means limited to these regions. Once an amended conscience clause was passed in 1907, which made conscientious objector status much easier to attain, the national exemption rate grew to 25 percent of all births.The vaccination conscience clauses were controversial. As most of the applicants who applied for these exemption certificates came from the working classes, and many were women, these acts generated a national debate over the classed and gendered nature of the conscience and the meanings of conscientious objection. The years between 1898 and 1907 thus mark a significant moment in the making of the modern subject and citizen. For, as the debate over conscientious objection to vaccination reveals, who exactly was entitled to make a claim to possess a conscience, with its concomitant rights, was itself a contested issue.