Tag: vaccines

bookmark_borderThe MA state house and “vaccination certainty”

Posted on by Marissa

Last month, the Massachusetts state legislature passed an order requiring all members and staff to receive Covid vaccines. 28 courageous representatives (all Republicans) stood up for individual rights and voted against this authoritarian requirement. Naturally, they have faced criticism for doing so.

This article from CommonWealth Magazine outlines the arguments that took place at the state house. I’ll go over some of the highlights and explain why I believe the Democrat-controlled legislature was wrong to institute the vaccine mandate.

“Vaccines are essential to fulfill our responsibility to care for our staff, each other and the public, and represent the quickest path to a full and safe reopening,” said Rep. William Galvin, according to the article. 

This statement reflects two false presumptions. First of all, people do not have a moral duty to care for each other; people have a moral duty simply to refrain from violating other people’s rights. By forcing state legislators and their staffs to get a vaccine, the mandate order violates this moral duty. Second, this statement presumes that safety is required in order for the state house to be allowed to open. This is also false. There is no requirement to ensure that something is safe before allowing it to happen. The best option is to simply open the state house. That way, people who feel that it is safe enough to go there in person should be welcome to do so, and those who feel that in-person attendance is too risky should be welcome to attend via zoom or some other type of video conferencing. 

“Your vote against providing vaccination certainty is a vote that tells your friends, your colleagues, and our collective staff you value their health less than your political talking points,” said Rep. Michael Day.

This statement rubs me the wrong way for a couple of reasons. It is wrong of Day to reduce standing up for individual rights, bodily autonomy, and medical privacy to “political talking points.” This denies any possibility that the dissenting representatives genuinely believe in the stand that they are taking, which is insulting both to them and to everyone who shares their opposition to vaccine mandates. Additionally, I found it somewhat disturbing that Day spoke of “vaccination certainty” as something that is important for people to have. Essentially, Day is implying that people have a right to be certain that the people around them have gotten the vaccine. This is not true at all. What medical procedures the people around you have or have not gotten is, quite frankly, none of your business. No one has a right to control, or know about, other people’s medical decisions.

The CommonWealth Magazine article also says, “Democrats portrayed votes against the policy as a vote against vaccine acceptance.” This argument is off-base as well. Votes against the policy are votes in favor of the right to choose whether to get the vaccine or not. Both options are acceptable and should be treated as such. Voting against vaccine acceptance would be voting for a policy banning state representatives from getting the vaccine, something that (obviously) is not under consideration. Instead, votes for the policy are votes against allowing the option of declining the vaccine, which is tyrannical and authoritarian. Votes against the policy are votes in favor of maintaining both options as acceptable, which is exactly the way it should be. 

Adding insult to injury, Rep. Mindy Domb posted the below tweet, in which she presumes that if something is effective at preventing transmission, illness, and/or death, then everyone needs to be forced to do it. This is completely wrong. No person or government has any right to force people to do things against their will, regardless of how effective those things are at preventing virus transmission, illness, or death. Additionally, by calling for “education,” Domb is equating holding a different opinion than hers with lack of education. Believe it or not, it is possible for someone to have the same amount of knowledge and education as Domb does, but to hold different moral and political views. What a revolutionary concept.

Adding further insult to injury, the order also allows representatives who do not get the vaccine to be cited for an ethics violation. This is the exact opposite of what they deserve. Choosing not to get the vaccine, given the amount of bullying, pressure, and coercion in the current political environment, demonstrates courage and the ability to think for oneself. Anyone who makes this choice should be lauded for his/her bravery and good character, not penalized with an ethics violation. 

Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, who shared that she is immunocompromised due to treatment for pancreatic cancer, argued that violating individual rights is justified in order to protect vulnerable people. But But Rep. Michael Soter made a good counter-point. Noting that he is immunocompromised as well, he participated in the debate via zoom because “I know what my limitations are.” 

This is the right way of looking at things. I don’t want to sound un-empathetic towards people who are battling cancer or other medical conditions that affect the immune system, but the fact is that being immunocompromised does not give you the right to take away the freedom and privacy of other people. If you are immunocompromised, it is your responsibility to avoid situations that are too dangerous for you (or to incur the risk that the situation poses). It is not other people’s responsibility to undergo a medical procedure for your benefit, and it is not your right to require them to do so.

bookmark_borderNY gov claims vaccine mandates are “self-defense”

Posted on by Marissa

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently defended her decision to enact vaccine mandates by claiming that they constitute “self-defense.” This is, simply, wrong. To claim that it is self-defense to force other people to undergo medical procedures against their will is preposterous, and it is disturbing that anyone would make this claim.

As I’ve written numerous times on this blog, each person has the right to do anything he or she pleases, as long as he or she is not violating the rights of anyone else. Rights include the ability to control what happens to one’s body, one’s time, one’s energy, and one’s property; in other words the things in one’s immediate sphere. If a person violates the rights of another person by interfering in that person’s sphere, the victim has the right to use physical force to defend him/herself. 

As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins. If someone was about to punch me in the face, I would have the right to put up my hands to defend myself, or even punch the person back, because punching me in the face would violate my rights.

The argument that vaccine mandates are self-defense fails because, unlike punching someone, opting not to get a vaccine does not violate anyone’s rights. The decision not to get a vaccine does not involve touching another person, physically harming another person, or invading another person’s personal space in any way. It does not take away another person’s time or energy or damage another person’s property. In short, it does not interfere in another person’s sphere in any way.

The decision of whether or not to get a substance injected into one’s body is soundly within one’s own personal sphere. Therefore, any attempt to interfere in another person’s vaccine decision violates that person’s rights and is an act of aggression.

Why, then, would anyone argue that such an obvious example of aggression is actually self-defense?

The most likely answer is that the decision not to get a vaccine does, admittedly, have indirect effects on other people. When one does not get a vaccine, there is a higher likelihood that one will catch a virus, and therefore a higher likelihood that the virus will subsequently infect a nearby person. In other words, decisions about whether or not to get a vaccine do, in aggregate, affect the risk level for everyone in the community.

But unlike punching someone in the face, which directly invades the person’s space and impacts their body, the effects of abstaining from vaccination are indirect. Unlike one’s face, which is squarely within one’s own sphere and which one therefore has a right to protect from being punched, one’s risk level for catching a virus is not within one’s sphere at all. There simply is not a right to have a zero percent risk of catching a virus. Nor is there a right to have a risk level below any particular amount. This is because securing these things would require interfering in the spheres of other people.

People have a right to manage their risk level through various actions that are within their spheres, such as by getting a vaccine, wearing a mask, wearing a face shield, avoiding activities, or maintaining physical distance from other people. People do not, however, have a right to manage their risk level by forcing other people to take or abstain from actions. That would constitute interference in other people’s spheres and would therefore violate other people’s rights.

Vaccine mandates are not self-defense. They are aggression.

bookmark_borderThe difference between action and omission

Posted on by Marissa

Majoring in philosophy in college, one of the first things I learned is the difference between action and omission. There is a fundamental difference between actively doing a bad thing, and merely failing to do a good thing. The first is morally wrong; the second is not.

Unfortunately, this distinction is lost on the mindless authoritarians whose goal is to force everyone on earth to get the Covid vaccine. Again and again, everyone is constantly bombarded by the claim that people who don’t get the vaccine are driving the pandemic, that they are causing hospitals to become overwhelmed, that they are putting their co-workers’ health at risk, that they are causing illness and death to other people, et cetera. These mean-spirited and philosophically unsound messages even infiltrate the comics section of the newspaper: while hoping to find some lighthearted humor, I recently came across a comic in which a cartoon version of “Covid” appeared at a party, the guests told him to go away because they hadn’t invited him, and Covid responded, “Well, by not getting vaccinated, you kinda did.”

No offense to Mr. Covid, but this way of thinking is wrong. Not getting vaccinated is not the same as “inviting” Covid to your party, because failing to prevent something is not the same as causing it. It’s true that by opting against the vaccine, people are not doing everything within their power to stop the spread of Covid. But failing to stop the spread of Covid is not the same as causing the virus to spread.

People are not morally obligated to take preventative measures to protect themselves or others. People are not obligated to get a vaccine, no matter how safe, harmless, or convenient you may consider the vaccine to be. People are not obligated to care for others or demonstrate love for their neighbors. People are not obligated to work to end the pandemic, to “do their part,” or to make any sacrifices for the sake of the common good. 

People are obligated to abstain from actively harming others, and that’s it. As long as they are not deliberately coughing on someone with the express purpose of giving them the virus, non-vaccinated people are not doing anything wrong.

For those who think that this is merely a philosophical distinction with no practical significance, allow me to point out that as a result of the widespread failure to distinguish between action and omission, people who have not gotten the vaccine have wrongfully been subjected to all sorts of discriminatory and punitive treatment. First of all, falsely accusing someone of causing sickness and death is harmful in itself. Non-vaccinated people have been called idiotic, irresponsible, selfish, and nearly every insult and criticism imaginable. Real harm is inflicted by treating people this way. Additionally, non-vaccinated people have suffered significant material harms as well. Increasingly, they are not allowed to work, enroll in college, attend sports games, concerts, plays, or events, visit restaurants, gyms, bars, casinos, or malls, or even get medical services. There are plans afoot to charge them more for health insurance and possibly even to bar them from interstate travel. Because non-vaccinated people are not doing anything wrong, all of this is completely unjustified and undeserved. 

Non-vaccinated people are not driving the pandemic; the virus is. Therefore, to punish any person in any way for opting against the vaccine is morally wrong. It really is that simple.

bookmark_borderJustin Trudeau’s totalitarianism

Posted on by Marissa

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently gave a disturbing speech justifying his decision to implement vaccine passport systems. Here’s an excerpt (via Turning Point USA):

“We’re paying for the provincial vaccine passports to make sure that when someone comes into a restaurant, they’ll know they won’t be sitting beside a table of people who are unvaccinated. When you go into a gym, when you go to a movie theater, you need to know that if you’ve done the right things, you get to be safe, you get to be rewarded, for having done the right things. That’s what it’s all about. And those people who still hesitate, who still resist, well, they won’t get to enjoy the same things as those who’ve done their part for others. It seems like a very logical thing. It seems like a very obvious thing.”

It is deeply wrong to treat basic activities such as going to restaurants, movies, and gyms as privileges reserved for people who have done some allegedly virtuous deed to earn them. Trudeau’s reasoning on vaccine passports is wrong for several reasons:

  1. Getting the Covid vaccine does not equal “doing the right thing.” It is morally neutral. Getting the vaccine and not getting the vaccine are both perfectly valid and acceptable choices; both are equally right. People who get the Covid vaccine are no more deserving of being rewarded than people who opt not to get it.
  2. People do not have a moral obligation to “do their part for others;” in fact there is no such thing as “their part for others.” No one is morally obligated to actively contribute to the health of others or to the greater good. The only moral obligation that people have is to refrain from violating other people’s rights. Simply doing nothing, and minding one’s own business, is a perfectly morally acceptable option. 
  3. Because no one is morally obligated to take any actions for the benefit of others, people have a fundamental right to “hesitate” or “resist” getting the vaccine. Those who “hesitate” or “resist” getting the vaccine are not doing anything wrong at all, and Trudeau has no right to speak about them in a critical or disparaging manner. 
  4. No one has a right to know about the vaccine status of the people around them. Trudeau seems to be implying that it’s important for people, when going to a restaurant, to know that the people at nearby tables have gotten the vaccine. But actually, the vaccine status of people at nearby tables (or even at your own table) is none of your business. The right to make one’s own medical decisions, and to keep those decisions private, outweighs any desire to minimize the Covid risk that is present in one’s environment. In other words, an inherent part of going out in public is that one may come into contact with people of varying health statuses and vaccine statuses. If this poses a level of risk that is unacceptable to you, then stay home. 
  5. Basic, everyday activities such as going to restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters are rights, not privileges. Being allowed to do these things is not a “reward” for (allegedly) good behavior; it is a fundamental right. It is beyond disturbing that activities nearly universally considered rights two years ago have morphed into privileges.

In conclusion, contrary to what Trudeau claims, requiring people to undergo a medical procedure in order to participate in life is not a logical thing, nor is it an obvious thing. It is logically unsound, morally wrong, and totalitarian.

bookmark_border“I’m sick of catering to them”

Posted on by Marissa

During a Twitter exchange last week about Joe Biden’s decision to implement totalitarian restrictions taking away people’s rights to make their own medical decisions, I was particularly struck by the following comment:

“I’m sick of catering to them, too.”

This comment was a response to someone who was complaining about people who have chosen not to get the Covid vaccine. The commenter was expressing frustration about the extent to which society has allegedly catered to non-vaccinated people.

My first response was… what a preposterous comment. Non-vaccinated people have been criticized, insulted, called murderers, called irresponsible idiots, barred from activities, places, and occupations, and with increasing pervasiveness and severity been pressured, coerced, bullied, mandated, and required to get the vaccine that they do not want. All of this is the exact opposite of catering to non-vaccinated people.

But then I thought some more about this comment, and the more I thought about it, the more disturbed I became. Our society has never, in any way, shape, or form, treated people who haven’t gotten the vaccine better than people who have. At best, vaccinated and non-vaccinated people have occasionally been treated equally and granted equal rights and privileges in some situations. The vast majority of the time, in the ways enumerated above, non-vaccinated people are treated worse than their vaccinated counterparts.

How could someone look at this state of affairs and see a world that caters to those who have not gotten the vaccine?? 

I realized that this Twitter commenter seems to believe that anything short of actually forcing people to get the vaccine constitutes catering to the unvaccinated. In other words, he/she thinks that merely respecting the fundamental rights of non-vaccinated people, merely allowing them to exist, constitutes catering to them. This is deeply wrong. Catering to someone means deliberately structuring things around their needs, wishes, and preferences. Respecting someone’s fundamental rights is not catering to them. Allowing someone to exist is not catering to them. Abstaining from forcing unwanted medical procedures on someone is not catering to them. 

When this commenter expressed being sick of catering to the unvaccinated, what he/she was actually saying was: “I’m sick of allowing people who are different from me to exist.”

It’s hard to imagine a more intolerant or authoritarian way of thinking than that. But unfortunately, this way of thinking has become increasingly dominant in today’s society. From the forcible imposition of Covid mitigation measures, to the violent destruction of statues and monuments honoring unpopular historical figures, to the vicious negative reaction to the protest that took place at the Capitol building on January 6, our society largely operates on the belief that the preferences and values of the majority ought to be imposed on everyone. 

Therefore, the majority – in this case those who support mandatory vaccination and/or mandatory Covid testing – are the ones who are truly being catered to. It is their needs, wishes, and preferences around which society is structured. But in their intolerant zeal to obliterate diversity and freedom of choice from the world, they do not see this. They are tired of tolerating the existence of those who are different from them. Already possessing more power and control than they deserve, these bullies view any tiny remaining shred of liberty for the minority as an offense. 

A popular slogan among those on the left-hand side of the political spectrum is: respect existence or expect resistance. It’s time they live in accordance with those words.

bookmark_borderBiden’s totalitarianism reaches new lows (again)

Posted on by Marissa

I have been so heartbroken, furious, and disgusted by Joe Biden’s September 9 announcement that I have not been able to write coherently about this subject. Reading about and watching his speech was horrifying, and I am ashamed to be from a country that elected him president. I can confidently say that I have never in my life been a fan of Biden, but the degree of authoritarianism and disregard for individual liberty that he has demonstrated is far beyond what I ever imagined possible. For the better part of five days, I have felt completely exhausted, beaten down, and sick to my stomach. I have felt as if my chest is being crushed in a vice and a noose slowly being tightened around my neck.

With that said, here are a few semi-coherent thoughts on Biden’s reprehensible speech:

  • Biden’s comments that “it’s not about freedom or personal choice” are preposterous. The issue of whether people should be required to get Covid vaccines or testing is fundamentally a matter of freedom and personal choice; that is self-evident. Clearly, Biden does not think freedom or personal choice are important. His executive order takes these basic rights away from millions of people. But the fact that Biden is taking the anti-freedom position on an issue does not make the issue not about freedom.
  • Biden says that his “patience is wearing thin” with people who opt not to get the Covid vaccine. This makes no sense. People who opt not to get the vaccine are doing nothing wrong; therefore there is no reason for their existence to make anyone upset, angry, or frustrated in any way. I don’t know about you, but my patience has completely run out with this fascist government and its attempts to take away people’s power over their own bodies and lives.
  • The purpose of OSHA is to protect workers. Under Biden’s executive order, OSHA would require employers to require workers to do medical procedures that they do not want to do. This is the exact opposite of protecting workers, and therefore the exact opposite of what OSHA is supposed to be doing.
  • For those who argue that Biden’s executive order protects workers by lowering everyone’s Covid risk, it is true that the executive order benefits those workers whose sole concern is having the lowest Covid risk possible, and who care nothing about freedom, individual rights, or the well-being of those with different preferences than themselves. But people who have this attitude are wrong. Their desire for safety does not override the rights of others to make decisions about their own bodies. Biden’s executive order gives paranoid, anti-freedom people a benefit that they do not deserve by invading the bodies of their co-workers. This is unjust and wrong.
  • One person on Twitter equated requiring vaccination with banning people from waving a chainsaw around at work. This analogy is ridiculous. Employers have the right to make rules about what employees are and are not allowed to do while at work, and waving a chainsaw is definitely something that employers have a right to ban. Vaccine and testing requirements are different in two ways. First, they compel people to actively take an action as opposed to banning an action. Second, requiring people to undergo a medical procedure does not merely affect them during their work hours; it physically invades their body. By working for a company, people agree to give up specified amounts of time and energy in exchange for money. But bodily integrity is far more intimate and is beyond the scope of what people should have to give up in order to secure employment.
  • The fact that the vaccination/testing requirement will likely apply even to people who work from home defeats any attempt to justify it by invoking workplace safety. Clearly, the vaccination status of those who work 100% remotely has no impact on the safety of their co-workers. This demonstrates that the executive order is not primarily about protecting workers; it is about pressuring as many people as possible into getting the vaccine.
  • As for Biden’s comments that if governors will not help to beat the pandemic, he will get them out of the way, this is not only disturbingly totalitarian, but philosophically unsound. Believe it or not, there are more important things than beating the pandemic, such as individual liberty. Of course, beating the pandemic is a worthy goal, but it is never acceptable to violate people’s rights in order to do so. Individual rights must always come first, no exceptions. Governors who recognize this, and who are courageously standing up for the rights of their people, should be praised, not criticized and threatened.

A real leader would have banned businesses from requiring Covid vaccination or testing. A real leader would have instructed OSHA to draft a rule fining businesses for requiring Covid vaccination or testing, not for failing to do so. A real leader would have stood up for individual rights, not trampled on them. A real leader would have threatened to “get out of the way” those businesses and states which are trampling on the rights of their people, not those that are failing to trample.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that we now live in a totalitarian society. Biden’s executive order is the most severe violation of individual rights that has ever been enacted in the United States. Your body is the most fundamental piece of property that you own, and the right to make decisions about it is the most fundamental right there is. If people can be deprived of this right, then people are no longer free in any meaningful sense. The fact that such a thing has happened in the United States is heartbreaking, infuriating, and sickening.

bookmark_borderBiden’s totalitarianism reaches new lows

Posted on by Marissa

Thanks to the FDA’s decision to officially approve the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, Joe Biden got a new excuse to act like a totalitarian dictator and to trample on everyone’s fundamental rights.

In a public address, he called on all employers, including private companies, organizations, state governments, and local governments, to require their workers to get the vaccine. “I’m calling on more companies and the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people,” the president said.

It’s absolutely appalling that the president of the United States, a nation founded upon the ideal of individual liberty, used the power of his office to urge companies to take away their employees’ freedom to make their own medical decisions. He urged companies to “step up” and violate people’s fundamental rights, as if violating people’s fundamental rights is somehow a good thing. As if bringing intrusion into personal medical decisions to millions more people is somehow a positive thing that makes people’s lives better, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

To value and protect individual liberty is both the job of the president of the United States and a requirement for being a morally decent person. Yet Biden is doing the exact opposite of this. As the most powerful person in the world, he chose to use that power to advocate for a world with less freedom, less dignity, and fewer rights for individuals. He chose to advocate for a world in which more people are forced to do medical procedures that they do not want to do. I can’t think of a worse way for a leader to use his or her power. Not only is Biden by far the worst president the United States has ever had, but he is also a despicable human being and far more of a bully than Donald Trump ever was. 

bookmark_borderBishop gets it wrong on vaccine mandate

Posted on by Marissa

The diocese of Lexington, Kentucky recently mandated Covid vaccines for all of its employees. In a statement announcing and justifying the decision, Bishop John Stowe demonstrated a disturbing view of morality, which completely disregards the idea of individual rights and is, in my opinion, completely immoral.

“This is an urgent matter of public health and safety. There is no religious exemption for Catholics to being vaccinated, and Pope Francis has repeatedly called this a moral obligation. The health care system is now overwhelmed by a crisis caused primarily by those who refuse to protect themselves and others by getting vaccinated. This is unacceptable, and our diocese now joins those employers who have already made this basic commitment to the common good a requirement.”

(H/T Jack Jenkins on Twitter)

First of all, contrary to what Bishop Stowe and Pope Francis believe, it is simply false to say that getting a medical procedure is a moral obligation. The only moral obligation that a person has is to abstain from violating the rights of other people. No one is ever morally obligated to actively do anything, and that includes getting a vaccine.

Second, it’s wrong to say that any overwhelm of the health care system is caused by those who opt against the vaccine. It’s true that the situation could potentially have been prevented if more people had gotten the vaccine, but failing to prevent something is not the same as causing it. The virus itself is what is causing people to get sick and the medical system to get overwhelmed. The distinction between actively causing something and merely failing to prevent it is a crucial moral distinction that Bishop Stowe completely fails to make.

This leads to my next point, which is that declining to protect oneself and others (decline is a better word than refuse, because it is neutral as opposed to presuming that the person is acting wrongly by opting not to do the thing in question) is actually a perfectly morally acceptable decision. People are morally obligated not to violate the rights of others, and that’s it. No one is morally obligated to actively protect others. No one is morally obligated to protect him/herself, either. People have the right to take any health risks that they want to. One could argue that deciding not to get the vaccine is unwise, but it does not violate the rights of others; therefore it is a perfectly moral choice that people have the right to make.

Contrary to Bishop Stowe’s claim, there is nothing unacceptable about the situation. People have a right to decide which, if any, preventative measures to take with regards to Covid, and the number of people who get sick will correspond to those decisions. Of course, it is sad whenever someone becomes seriously ill, but people have a right to risk this if they choose to. There is nothing unacceptable about people making their own decisions about what level of risk they are willing to take.

As for the comments about the common good, these are completely misguided and, frankly, immoral. A commitment to the common good is not a requirement for being a moral person, and it certainly should not be a requirement for employment. You know what is a requirement for being a moral person? Respect for individual rights. Sadly, that is something that Bishop Stowe, along with numerous other employers, is sorely lacking. The contempt that Stowe demonstrates towards people who have done absolutely nothing wrong is cruel, disrespectful, philosophically unsound, unjustified, and wrong. Joining those employers who have completely failed in their moral duty to treat others with basic respect is not something that he should be bragging about.

bookmark_borderDr. Fauci gets it backwards

Posted on by Marissa

Dr. Fauci recently made some disturbing comments that demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the concept of individual rights. 

“This is very serious business,” Fauci said on MSNBC in response to a question about whether teachers should be required to get the Covid vaccine. “You would wish that people would see why it’s so important to get vaccinated… I’m sorry, I know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but I think we’re in such a serious situation now that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done.”

Fauci has it completely backward. His position seems to be that protecting people from Covid-19 comes first, and individual freedom comes second. In other words, people should only be allowed individual freedom when safety and health concerns allow. But individual freedom, which includes the ability to decline vaccination if one so chooses, is not merely nice to have. It is not merely something that people would like. It is a fundamental right. It needs to come first. Safety is something that people would like to have, health is something that people would like to have, a low risk of catching a virus is something that people would like to have, but these things can only be taken into consideration after making sure that individual freedom is respected. 

bookmark_border“Irresponsible idiots”

Posted on by Marissa

Again and again, people who opt against the Covid vaccine are called morons, idiots, selfish, irresponsible, and a whole host of personally insulting nouns and adjectives. Those who spew forth these insults are essentially claiming that people are morally obligated to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of others. This raises the question: are people who choose not to undergo a medical procedure truly selfish and irresponsible?

In my opinion, no. If anything, it is selfish and irresponsible to demand that others make the same medical decisions that you would make. The freedom to make decisions about one’s body is a fundamental right. My body, my choice, as those on the left-hand side of the political spectrum so often say with regards to abortion (although they seem to believe this principle is confined only to that particular issue). Unfortunately, the fact that the coronavirus spreads from person to person has caused a lot of people to throw the concept of individual liberty out the window. There is a tendency to believe that in situations where a person’s actions affect other people, individuals should no longer have the right to make their own choices. 

But that way of looking at things is wrong and misguided. It is true that when it comes to communicable diseases, one person’s actions have an indirect impact on others and on society as a whole by affecting the risk levels in the community. Opting not to get a vaccine does mean that a person has a higher risk of catching an illness, and therefore a higher risk of passing the illness on to other people. But there are numerous situations in which a person’s actions can affect other people. In fact, this is true in almost every situation to some degree. Riding a motorcycle creates noise which nearby people might find unpleasant; unhealthy eating can cause health problems which, if a person has insurance, can drive up insurance prices for everyone; and gun ownership carries a risk that one’s gun could be stolen and used to commit a crime, to list just a few examples.

But these are all actions that people have a right to do. To understand why, one needs to understand the difference between direct effects and indirect effects. If someone were to crash their motorcycle into your house, that would have a direct effect on you. It would destroy your property (and possibly physically injure you) and therefore violate your rights. Shooting someone would fall into the same category, as would stealing someone’s money, or giving someone Covid on purpose by deliberately coughing or sneezing on them. These actions all directly harm another person. Opting not to get a vaccine, on the other hand, does not directly harm anyone. It affects others only indirectly, by affecting the risk levels in the community. Declining the vaccine increases your risk of catching the virus, but it does not directly cause you to get it, because it is possible to decline the vaccine without catching the virus. Therefore, declining the vaccine certainly doesn’t cause anyone else to get the virus, because even if you get the virus yourself, you may or may not give it to another person. 

Your habits affect my risk level, those on the left argue, so they are my business. Your personal decisions make me less safe, so you don’t have a right to make them. But these arguments disregard the direct negative impact that is inherent in taking people’s freedom away. Being subjected to an unwanted medical procedure, or being pressured into doing something one does not want to do, violates rights and is inherently harmful. Effects on risk level and safety are not adequate justification for taking away the right to bodily autonomy and thereby inflicting direct harm. The fact that actions have indirect effects on other people does not override the concept of individual rights. If it did, then individual rights would essentially cease to exist. 

If you consider me selfish because I am unwilling to give up my right to control my own body, then so be it. I would rather be a selfish, irresponsible idiot than a mean, stuck-up, contemptuous, intolerant bully.