Analyzing Context

For this blog post I will answer questions from Writing Public Lives on page 340 that refer to reading the context of your public debate.

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What are the key perspectives or schools of thought on the debate that you are studying?
The correlation between higher rates of vaccine-preventable diseases and states that have more lenient vaccination requirement laws.  Seeing whether or not areas that have higher or lower rates of medical or religious exemptions have any connection to higher or lower rates of schoolchildren being vaccinated.

What are the major points of contention or major disagreements among these perspectives?
Parents not seeing any connection to doctor's or lawmaker's positions of needing to have more schoolchildren being vaccinated.  Higher rates of children not being vaccinated in connection to states with more lenient vaccination requirement laws.  This is compared to states with higher rates of children being vaccinated in connection to states with stricter vaccination requirement laws.  The question some people may ask is, why are the rates for each of the two so different one another?  Perhaps, more analysis in my project can help answer that question.

What are the possible points of agreement, or the possible common ground between these perspectives?
Parents who want to their children to be healthier and possibly avoid contracting vaccine-preventable diseases, agree with lawmakers and doctors on legislation that requires stricter enforcement of vaccination laws.  The fact that they agree with one another is seen by the rates of these diseases in these states.  Since these rates are lower than states with more lenient laws, more parents seem to agree with the strict laws whereas, parents from the more lenient states are still in disagreement with the doctor and lawmakers.  A possible result of the disagreement may contribute to higher rates of diseases.

What are the ideological differences, if any, between the perspectives?
Religion and medical exemptions play a smaller role than philosophical or nonmedical exemptions in the controversy.  Parents who use nonmedical exemptions believe that vaccinations will harm their children more than it will help them.  This belief could be one reason why a larger percentage of parents with these beliefs see their children acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases.

What specific actions do their perspectives or texts ask their audience to take?
Since lawmakers that enforce stricter vaccination requirement laws see the disease rates to be lower than states with more lenient laws, the specific action that took place was to require more parents to vaccinate their children.  Scientific journals along with government agencies (such as the CDC and NIH) provide data to the two groups involved in my project, which can ultimately help them gain a better perspective of the details in this controversy.

What perspectives are useful in supporting your own arguments about the issue?  Why did you choose these?
By looking more closely at the benefits of vaccinations and how data can support the enforcement of them shows to lower rates of children acquiring diseases, I can give my audience more informative analysis of the controversy.  Taking this side rather than side of individuals who feel that vaccines are more of a threat, I can provide better analysis of the controversy.

What perspectives do you think will be the greatest threat to your argument?  Why so?
By not addressing the side of individuals who believe vaccines are more harmful than beneficial, my project will not address all aspects/sides of the public argument/controversy.  Presenting all sides of the argument will seem less biased and more informative, which could in the end give more readers the ability to find ways to have this controversy move in a better direction.