Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
False equivalence...so I didn't vote.
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Pro Choice or Pro Life (Survey)
- Thread starter Heyo
- Start date
"People should safeguard their own health" does not imply "unvaccinated people are entitled to be in spaces where they're likely to infect others."
Afraid I had to go with being a hypocrite -- but only because the options offered are apples and oranges. They don't compare, so the choice is not really a valid one.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the poll choices are designed to get people to accept two unrelated things as being related, in order to get them to accept one because they accept the other -- and don't want to admit to being a hypocrite. In other words, a set up!
Look, I am pro-life, and for that reason I want people to get vaccinated, because I KNOW that vaccines save lives. It is now admitted that something like a quarter million Americans would be alive today if more effort was made to get people vaccinated. That's a lot of dead people who don't need to be! But because I am pro-life, that doesn't mean that I must ALWAYS choose life in EVERY possible circumstance. When an animal is suffering terribly and essentially certain to die in huge pain, I have no problem at all with euthanasia. And I'm afraid I can carry that over to humans, too.
And while I'm pro-life, I also happen to be pro-bodily autonomy (which was not an option in your poll), and sometimes those things come into conflict. And then we have a deep ethical problem, and they are always difficult to resolve. But just because they're hard to resolve doesn't mean we shouldn't try! So if a woman finds that she is pregnant with a (potential-but-not-yet-baby), and does not want to carry it to term, then I put her (as a living, breathing, walking, thinking, choosing person) interests over what is still just a potential.
Now, when we come to vaccines, how many people do you know who suffered from polio, and were crippled for their whole lives? Being as old as I am, I've known quite a few. For that reason, much of the western world made the polio (and other) vaccine mandatory -- with the result that for people younger than me, polio is just a word. That is a very, very good thing.
But let's say that I'm pro-choice on vaccines, but also pro-life? Would I not then be right to say, "Fine, don't get vaccinated. But also, you are dismissed from your position as a elderly care nurse out of a very real concern that you will be the vector that causes the deaths of too many others -- people that you did not give a choice to by refusing vaccination and refusing to wear a mask, and then showing up for work." Yes, I think I would be very correct in saying that.
Because I am pro-life.
As said by others, your poll offers nothing but logical fallacies and false equivocations.
Am I necessarily affected by the abortion up the road from me (from a purely health stat.)
Of course not.
It’s the same reason why when I worked in a Deli I had to ensure the temperatures of all hot cooked food was above the approved of standard.
Why I needed to ensure all chickens shredded needed to be above a universally approved of degree. Why I needed to chuck away perfectly good food, despite a world wide hunger crisis. I was beholden to a legally binding standard of food safety deemed safe by the government. Something that affected not just me and you, but every single customer (potentially.)
Sorry but medical mandates (though personally I favour personal choice above all else) is an overall health and safety requirement. Otherwise no restaurant, deli, fast food chain even would bother to discard food that is considered unfit to eat. Despite, like I said, a world wide food crisis.
Health of the overall population takes precedent. Sorry if that’s inconvenient to you. Boo hoo.
And yeah I consider the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person to be a priority. Sorry if that inconveniences you. Except it never does, unless you got the person pregnant. Even then, are you going through the medical necessities associated with pregnancy? Be honest
Does the birth affect overall health and safety to the population you currently live in?
Does the birth affect your life?
Does it affect your health?
Because the unvaccinated can absolutely affect the overall health of the population, health of my society and even my own health.
That’s the difference you seem to be ignoring. Perhaps on purpose. I hope not
But to be clear I am pro choice fervently. If someone chooses not to be vaccinated, that’s on them. They just have to live with the societal consequences
I can live with that
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Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
No. It's your responsibility. Not theirs.
Heyo
Veteran Member
The two cases seem to be very different and they are if you search for the differences. They are not if you look at the commonality. The common theme is that both anti vaxxers and anti forced breeding people cite the right to bodily autonomy as their reason.
I.e. if you find yourself on different teams in both discussions you have to solve the moral dilemma why that is. You know (well, should know) that your decision doesn't rest on the principle you cite as reason.
I myself was often on the edge of becoming a hypocrite when I saw how stupidly the anti vaxxers defended their position and to call for mandated vaccinations because sometimes the adults have to force the unreasonable kids to their own good. I had to remind myself that the right to bodily autonomy can't be taken away just because someone is stupid - or pregnant.
So, the real question of the thread, and I didn't think I had to spell that out, is: on which higher principles do you defend your position that the right to bodily autonomy should be suspended in one case but not the other?
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Because they are. One is willfully killing..the other is refusing a vaccine, a choice that 99 percent of the time is not going to hurt anyone.
Bodily autonomy works as a principle only if it directly affects you and no one else. A zygote or fetus is yet to be determined as a living breathing human and it’s status as a human with rights is debatable at best
Anti vaxxers may cite bodily autonomy but their decision directly affects the community, full of living breathing people. That is never disputed.
Maybe the consequences are argued but their decision affects the broader community regardless. Unless they choose to live as a hermit I guess. But their decision is a matter of public health and safety. Abortion just isn’t
So no, you offer up a false equivalency. Sorry not sorry.
Offer up a better comparison or kindly well you know
Tell that to the folks who died of a preventable disease (one that we vaccinate for.)
And one of the ways that people who don't want to get sick can exercise that responsibility is by excluding people who are more likely to be sick from spaces where they're more likely to spread disease.
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KW
Well-Known Member
KW
Well-Known Member
Abortion kills the innocent child by design. The purpose of abortion is to kill.
Those who are reluctant to get the vaccine aren’t trying to hurt anyone.
On the simple principle at play in all questions about "rights:" that there are more than just one, and you must use your reason to sort out which ones should be considered first in each situation.
For example, I know it is wrong to take a run at someone I don't even know and tackle them to the ground. On the other hand, if that someone was fiddling with their hearing aid while standing on a railway track and I can see a train barreling down -- then I think I am duty-bound to do exactly that, if I have time.
Ponder This
Well-Known Member
In the general case, there is no right to receive these medical procedures - vaccination or abortion. A doctor may refuse to administer either just as he may refuse to fulfill a prescription or refuse some other form of treatment for a voluntary patient. States may regulate these procedures for various reasons, among them health and safety.
In the general case, people do have the right to refuse abortion or vaccination or other treatments or procedures. Just as patients can't compel a doctor to give treatments, doctors cannot compel a patient to receive treatments.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I do not think that anyone is arguing that doctors should be ordered to participate in a procedure that they do not believe in.
One of the reasons that Roe v Wade was more about the doctor's rights than the pregnant woman's rights was that abortion laws tend to punish the doctors not the recipient. It gave the doctors the right to perform abortions without worrying about being arrested. In other words it gave them permission. It did not order them to do so.
Where is this?
Here in Canada, for instance, patients have a right to medical care.
This also sounds like something that varies from place to place.
Here, doctors have to ensure that their refusal to provide care doesn't deny care to the patient (e.g. by referring them to a doctor who will provide the care). If that's impossible, the doctor may be ethically obligated to provide the care, even if they personally object to it.
In the doctor-patient relationship, the doctor is the one who's there voluntarily: they chose their profession, they chose their specialty, they often even get to choose their patients. The patient is the one who had to seek care, and often may have had no choice about which doctor or hospital to receive care from. Reasonable ethical standards take this imbalance into account by putting much more weight on the patient's needs than on the doctor's conscience in cases where these two things are in conflict.
I am.
If a doctor freely chose:
- to go into medicine,
- to pick a specialty whose scope includes procedures they disagree with, and
- to get a job at a facility that performs those procedures
... then that's entirely on them. Through their own free choices, they've put themselves in a position where patients are going to rely on them to perform those procedures.
If their facility or employer is okay with it and circumstances allow, they can get another doctor to sub in to do the work they're trying to refuse, but if that isn't possible, the patient's needs come first.
If some doctor doesn't like the obligation they freely agreed to, too bad. They can get released from it later when it won't compromise patient care.