Does a government have a right to introduce water fluoridation into a water supply?
The facts: A government not only has a right to introduce water fluoridation, it has a responsibility to do so! John Harris from the Centre for Social Ethics & Policy, University of Manchester, UK wrote: “In considering the ethics of fluoridation one might legitimately reverse the question and ask if fellow citizens are entitled to impose, not only a disadvantage on the community at large, but impose actual deaths and the risk of death on children for the sake of a minor diminution in the range of choices available? We should ask not are we entitled to impose fluoridation on unwilling people but are the unwilling people entitled to impose the risks, damage and costs of failure to fluoridate on the community at large. When we compare the freedoms at stake, the most crucial is surely the one which involves liberation from pain and disease.
The facts: A government not only has a right to introduce water fluoridation, it has a responsibility to do so! John Harris from the Centre for Social Ethics & Policy, University of Manchester, UK wrote: “In considering the ethics of fluoridation one might legitimately reverse the question and ask if fellow citizens are entitled to impose, not only a disadvantage on the community at large, but impose actual deaths and the risk of death on children for the sake of a minor diminution in the range of choices available? We should ask not are we entitled to impose fluoridation on unwilling people but are the unwilling people entitled to impose the risks, damage and costs of failure to fluoridate on the community at large.
