Vaccine abolitionism, vaccine abolitionist, and vaccine abolition are terms used by Catholic American writer and paralegal Katherine Watt, whose work is published on Bailiwick News Archives.
They build on decades of “anti-vax” advocacy from millions of individuals and numerous groups who, long before the COVID-19 event, understood and fought the lies about vaccination told by government agencies and officials, pharmaceutical companies, and others.
Though accurate, anti-vax, anti-vaxxer, and anti-vaccination are defensive, pejorative labels assigned by those who have sought to discredit scientists, doctors, parents, and others who have learned what vaccines are and are not.
By contrast, vaccine abolitionism, vaccine abolitionist, and vaccine abolition are proactive, affirmative terms that name a principled effort to protect and free society and posterity from certain institutions, industries, messages, products, and acts of deceit and aggression — above and beyond efforts to resist or repeal mandates.
Abolishing mandates and abolishing vaccines are not opposing goals, but they are not the same goal. The first protects people from force and coercion. The second challenges a) the legitimacy of vaccines as a public health project, b) the act of vaccination, and c) the existence of vaccines. One historical example is illustrative of the distinction: The London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination fought against required vaccination; some members were against vaccination itself.1
Future work should expand the concept into a robust framework by explicating:
- why “inherited” labels such as anti-vax, anti-vaxxer, anti-vaccination, vaccine skepticism, vaccine reluctance, though accurate, are inadequate and are contrasted with promoted behaviors such as vaccine confidence, vaccine readiness, and vaccine willingness;
- why a self-owned term is needed;
- what historical parallels help explain and tether the cause;
- where the position fits in U.S. law; and
- what vaccine abolitionists seek to abolish and what they propose instead.
My first use of vaccine abolitionist was in a comment on a Wall Street Journal article on 2 May 2026.
Watt and I discuss the terms in this recorded presentation at 1:32:15.
From full transcript2
Jessica Hockett: Terminology that Katherine and I have discussed between ourselves is those terms of anti-vax and anti-vaxxer. Now, these terms are accurate. People who historically, or now, are against vaccination for themselves or for others, that’s correct. They are against it. But they are pejorative terms and are terms that are used to characterize efforts and individuals who reject government and pharma-medical establishment claims about vaccines and vaccinations. They’re used to label, to the point where we see, I’ll just say people in COVID-dissident land, say, Well, I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’m a vaccine skeptic. And that’s fine. [If] vaccine skeptic really describes where you are, you shouldn’t assign a label or own a label to yourself and your beliefs that you don’t agree with.
But it’s interesting to watch people around the vaccine conversation or say, Well, the COVID shot is really bad, but everything else is fine.
So a few weeks ago, Katherine had offered the term vaccine abolitionist or vaccine abolition. And I think this term has a lot of potential moving forward, because it’s a proactive term, a term of ownership, that names a principled effort to protect and free society & posterity – so, the future – from certain institutions and industries, messages, products, different acts of deceit and aggression that we’ve seen and experienced from vaccination beyond efforts to simply resist mandates.
Now, wanting to get rid of mandates, I think, is a good thing, but it’s not quite the same, and doesn’t require the same strategies or mindset as vaccine abolition, or saying, I want to get rid of vaccines. Katherine, do you have anything to add on just that point before I go on, with vaccine abolitionists, since that was your term, and we’ve kind of tried to flesh it out a bit together?
Katherine Watt: No. I mean it also came a little bit out of trying to use the expression vaccine hostility.3 To also frame it as, it’s an active, carefully thought-out position that a person takes. It’s not just a reflex. It’s not something that they do because they’re ignorant. It’s something they do, or it’s a position that they hold because they have informed themselves and have found that this thing that is presented to them as a good thing is actually not a good thing at all, and therefore should not be accepted.
Jessica Hockett: Yeah, and you’re basically saying, I don’t think it should be presented as an option to anyone. So [people say] Well, informed consent, people should be being informed. Well, I guess a vaccine abolitionist, or I, which I would include myself in this now, is to say, No, I don’t – if you were really informed – actually, this is something Mike Yeadon said4 that I’m building off of – but No, if you were actually informed about what the product was, there is no such thing as informed consent. It’s not even ethical to offer you the product in the circumstance. So yeah, that’s a different, not everybody, I guess, has to adopt that position, or not everybody will, but it is a different position saying a vaccine skeptic, I would say.
Katherine Watt: Right.
- https://academic.oup.com/dsh/article/39/1/162/7330453 ↩︎
- Hockett, J., & Watt, K. (2026, May 19). “How easy & legal it is for governments to fake or construct outbreak & pandemic events.” Wood House 76. https://woodhouse76.com/2026/05/19/how-easy-and-legal-it-is-for-governments-to-fake-or-construct-outbreak-and-pandemic-events-presentation-by-jessica-hockett-katherine-watt/ Bailiwick News Archives. https://bailiwicknewsarchives.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026.05.18-hockett-watt-discussion-transcript.pdf ↩︎
- Katherine Watt’s first use of the term vaccine hostility from her records: June 26, 2024. p. 413/422 – https://bailiwicknewsarchives.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/bailiwick-news-substack-jan.-to-june-2024-vol.-8.pdf. | Jessica Hockett’s first use: https://woodhouse76.com/2026/04/25/vaccine-hostility-comment-on-nyt-article-the-make-america-healthy-again-movement-is-cooling-on-trump-and-republicans/ ↩︎
- Hockett, J. (2025, May 2). “There are no genuine vaccines.” Wood House 76. https://woodhouse76.com/2025/05/02/there-are-no-genuine-vaccines/ ↩︎