The recent measles outbreak in western Texas reveals quickly how an anti-vaccination choice directly threatens our most vulnerable population: newborns.

Two days after initially downplaying the outbreak as “not unusual,” the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Friday said he recognizes the serious impact of the ongoing measles epidemic in Texas – in which a child died recently…

Texas is in its worst measles outbreak in many decades, as if going backwards. With over 130 confirmed cases, 18 hospitalizations, and the first measles fatality in the United States in nearly a decade, public health officials are rightfully concerned.

The outbreak began in Gaines County, where kindergarten vaccination rates sit at just 82%—well below the 95% threshold that is required for proper herd immunity.

Let’s dig down into some basic math to illustrate what this policy failure means for newborns. Approximately 348,000 babies are born in Texas annually (29,000 monthly). They cannot receive measles vaccines until 12 months of age, so they depend on everyone else being vaccinated.

Meanwhile the measles transmission rate (R₀) is 12-18 (meaning each infected person typically infects 12-18 others in an unvaccinated population). The fatality is 1-2 per 1,000 cases (in developed countries, which Trump may violate already) and the infant case fatality rate is 5-10 times higher than the general population (approximately 5-10 per 1,000 cases).

Those calculations mean, as the current outbreak spreads into broader areas due to insufficient vaccination rates, the following is now a likely scenario:

1. Even if just 10% of Texas newborns were exposed over the coming months that’s ~35,000 babies in danger
2. An elevated infant mortality rate (5-10 per 1,000 cases) is a huge tragedy.
3. Simple math: 35,000 × (5-10/1,000) = 175-350 potential infant deaths

This isn’t hard to figure out. It’s grade school arithmetic telling us a disaster is looming.

And yet, Texas politicians seem to not understand the problem, which highlights a striking paradox.

The state has pumped its fists into the sky for “pro-life”, demanding babies be born. And yet some communities within the state maintain anti-vaccination rates that mean unborn and newborn will most certainly die. A pregnant woman infected with measles faces dangerously increased risks of premature birth and fetal death.

Behind every number is a real child. Behind every anti-vaccine crusader is a body count of preventable deaths – ironically including the very infants they claim to champion.

The six-year-old who recently died in Lubbock was a preventable tragedy. Parents in Texas like Kyle Rable, featured in recent reporting, now face the terrifying prospect of bringing a newborn into a state where official vaccine resistance of anti-life platforms mean preventable disease threatens their child’s life.

If we truly value life—especially the lives of the most vulnerable among us—then the mathematics of public health demand consistent policy. Pro-life must mean without exception:

• Vaccination is a community obligation and not a personal choice.
• Vaccination choice directly translates to fatality for those who cannot protect themselves
• The same moral framework that values unborn life must extend to protecting newborns from preventable diseases

The pro-life solution to prevent these potential newborn deaths is straightforward, take away the choice to be unvaccinated because it kills babies: immediately increase community vaccination rates to achieve the 95% threshold required for herd immunity.

This single, simple action to reduce vaccination choice would virtually eliminate the risk to newborns.

Public health demands scientific rigor and ethical clarity, not political posturing. The numbers tell an undeniable story: anti-vaccine campaigns have framed a “personal choice” that, by epidemiological calculation, produces deadly consequences. It’s a cruel and tragic irony that hundreds of infants now face preventable death in a state that claimed it couldn’t tolerate a single baby dying—criminalizing one form of individual choice while celebrating another with far, far greater collective harm. Even women who want to have children are about to have the state put them in grave danger.