AN AMERICAN WOMAN has been jailed for a week for refusing to vaccinate her son.
Rebecca Bredow has been sent to prison for seven days in Michigan after failing to abide by a judge’s order instructing her to immunise her nine-year-old son, something she had initially agreed to do in November 2016 via a consent order, according to court documents.
Bredow is entitled under Michigan state law to forego vaccination for her children due to personal beliefs – the judge’s order resulted from her agreeing with her former spouse to have her child innoculated, ABC News reports.
Her sentence thus resulted from contempt of court.
Bredow, a mother-of-two, separated from her husband Jason Horne in 2008, with the pair thereafter sharing parental custody of their son.
When the child was born, she and her husband agreed that they should space out the various vaccinations needed for him.
Bredow claims that the court order from last week would have seen her son receive as many as eight immunisations in one go, and that to do so would go against her beliefs, stating that the decision to do so is a matter of “personal choice”.
“I would rather go to jail for standing up for what I believe in than vaccinating my child,” Bredow told ABC News.
“I take full responsibility for my actions, and it was not my intent to disrespect the court’s orders,” she told the judge.
I am not a lazy parent. I am a passionate mother who cares deeply about my children. I am an educated vaccine-choice mother. If my child is going to be forced to be vaccinated, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, it goes against my beliefs.
For the week that Bredow spends in custody, her son will pass to her ex-husband’s care.
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