I’m all for getting everyone vaccinated as well, but I’d be really concerned about the precedent this sets.
The reasons governments are reluctant to do this is they it sets a precedent for them to dictate what a person can do with their bodies.
Saying someone must have an injection, regardless of how well intentioned it is, requires you to be able to dictate what goes into their body. Pretty much the same set of powers that would dictate the old pro-life vs pro-choice debate.
I’m greatly conflicted. I want people vaccinated, but I personally do not like the idea of giving up bodily autonomy to do so.
What do you think of abortion? I agree about body autonomy but it frustrates me to no end to see woman asking for this basic right, even when their lives depend on it and it being denied, sterilization is also not easy to obtain for a woman.
But then comes someone who is scared about potential side effects to a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic crisis, so much so that they're willing to risk their peers and they cover themselves with "body autonomy" arguments, we already live in a country where people don't have body autonomy, it just does not affect you, until now.
I have the right not to get the shot. I control my own body. But there are others involved, not just me.
In the same way, with abortion, there's another involved, the fetus. It's not part of the mother's body (it's genetically different).
The "it's my body" argument breaks down in the same way for both issues. Unfortunately, both sides want to pick and choose when they apply which logic.
Is a fetus "someone" else or do we need more than 8 weeks to form a consciousness, how long is that period? I think there's debate to be had there.
while in the vaccine situation we're talking about actual already born humans who are walking around the unvaccinated person every day and there's no debate there, the risk is real, and the other people can actually be verbally vocal about not wanting to be involved with unvaccinated people.
Your first paragraph: Sure. There's debate to be had. My point is that the "it's my body" argument seems deliberately designed to hide the fact that the fetus isn't just a part of the woman's body. It's not like her tonsils or her appendix or her toenails. [Edit: That is, it's designed to hide the need for the debate.]
As to your second paragraph, it looks about even to me. If I walk around unvaccinated, I might infect someone. I might infect several people. Somewhere between zero and several people could die because of that. Whereas with abortion, the fetus is going to die with 100% probability.
But yes, people can be vocal about not wanting to be around unvaccinated people. The fetus? It never got a chance to voice an opinion.
I'd wager that "it's my body" argument does not try to hide that part of the debate, but instead declares a clear conviction that the fetus up to certain point is not a person, so it's a statement and it's picking a side in said debate, you can argue about that, in fact that's what most pro-life people do, it's even stated in the name _pro-life_ as in, for the life of the fetus, for that you have to conclude that the fetus is indeed a person.
What differentiates a embryo from a toumor? That it has another person's genetic code?
A mistakenly forgotten medical prop is not a part of anyone's body for example, wouldn't it be fucked up for someone not to be able to remove it from their body if the doctors left it inside just because it's not like their tonsils or her appendix? If there's something I don't want inside my body I should be able to decide, if your argument is that it is not "my body" because it is not explicitly "me" like my appendix, then many medical procedures would also be controversial
I absolutely agree, which is my primary concern with enforcing vaccination uptake. I have trouble picturing a world where we can have those rights remain strong while also forcing folks to be vaccinated.
Unclear how different is this from getting vaccinated as a child, giving blood sample for lab test as a child, and having your tooth removed as a child.
The parents consent for the child, because a child cannot give consent. As adults, only we can give consent for our bodies. As children, consent is delegated to the parents.
The draft - get sent to war against your will, potentially die, get maimed or get tortured.
This - get the vaccine tens of millions of people around the world have already got, or work remotely (or very worst case give up your cushy tech job and find another cushy tech job).
You can't opt out of the draft. If you work at FB/Google tell your manager the two magic words "I QUIT" and don't get the vaccine and go work somewhere that makes you happier.
AFAIK these companies are still at-will private employers and vaccination status is not a protected class. So they can fire anyone they want including all the anti-vaxxers, at any time they want, for whatever reason they want including vaccination status.
i think the draft is way worse in that you are separated from your family and there is a real possibility you’re going to die.
also, remember that this is not the government. your employer can ask you to do anything (within limits) and invoke at-will employment when you don’t want to do it. I love capitalism!
You raise an excellent point. When you sign up for the US military you give up a lot of your rights. This is definitely bad from a perspective of individual rights, though I can see arguments for a draft being a matter of addressing an existential threat.
Do we as a country feel like COVID is an existential threat? I’m definitely concerned about how we handle future, potentially worse pandemics before we figure out where we draw these lines and what appropriate trade offs are for public health.
Half the country thinks it is an existential threat. Half the country thinks it's a bad flu. About 612,000 people have died from it, that's more than WW2 which lead to the modern international political and economic systems. So yeah, change is happening IMO.
What we're doing now is proving the efficacy of using a mRNA vaccine platform to rapidly deal with a pandemic at a speed that has never been done before. So far the vaccine has worked great. Now we need to establish global distribution chains and make sure that in the event of an even worse pandemic we have options to vaccinate against it.
Society has progressed from such times. There are many things that were acceptable back then that would not be now. If the draft was re-enacted, we would hopefully see strong pushback.
The reasons governments are reluctant to do this is they it sets a precedent for them to dictate what a person can do with their bodies.
Saying someone must have an injection, regardless of how well intentioned it is, requires you to be able to dictate what goes into their body. Pretty much the same set of powers that would dictate the old pro-life vs pro-choice debate.
I’m greatly conflicted. I want people vaccinated, but I personally do not like the idea of giving up bodily autonomy to do so.