Dear Editor,

I wonder if your readers are aware of the recent droves of students visiting the Student Health Center to receive their compulsory immunizations? Most of these students are not visiting the SHC because they desire to be immunized but because the University has prevented them from registering for the fall semester unless they undergo immunization.

I have no sympathy with this policy. Who, after all, should be able to decide if they require treatment for a health problem? The University has decided that it is capable of making that decision for students of all classifications, from undergraduates living in campus dorms to graduate students who live outside the UA community.

In a conversation with a senior official at the SHC, I was advised that the immunizations required by the University are “fairly common” and that our policy is not unlike the policies of other institutions around the country.

Roughly 90 years ago, the University was in lockstep with the world in requiring “mentally deficient” people to undergo sterilization. And nurses and doctors, like the ones I spoke to when I was coercively injected, were saying, “We’re just doing what they tell us to.”

I don’t think immunizations are always harmful, but I patently object to being forced to undergo a medical procedure that I did not desire to have and which I view as not being beneficial to me. I have been on this campus for one year already, and I have neither contracted nor transmitted any of the diseases for which I was immunized. So when the official I spoke with claimed this was for the “safety of those around you,” I found this hard to accept.

When I asked about an exemption based on conscience, I was told I would have to have a “clergy person” write a letter. As an atheist, I found it incredibly demeaning that my conscience should be more or less declared invalid because I do not have a religious leader. Do we not seek to build a tolerant climate on our campus?

The medical official at the SHC was not prepared to comment on this issue.

Forcing people to undergo medical treatment is a recipe for a disastrous relationship between doctors and patients. Medical practice should involve the freely given consent of all parties involved. To coerce or force people to seek medical help is to cause them to distrust doctors and nurses.

I hope that the University will seriously consider revising this policy or otherwise extending the exemption based on the conscience of people of all religious and philosophical orientations.

Thomas Duke is a graduate student in communication studies.