Sometimes I wish there were Orbital Mind Control Lasers
Orbital Mind Control Lasers, at least would explain a few things. I’m going to slip in a fnord bleg here, but this bleg is actually a rhetorical bleg because I’ve asked already, perhaps a dozen times, and no one wants to pick up the ball and run with it.
So, you strong supporters of Roe, (which I’d like to remind everyone has a cornerstone in the implied inalienable right to privacy, specifically medical privacy), seeing as you would never willfully dilute Roe, why would you ever support a scheme like (take your choice of terms) Hilliary Care, universal health care, single payer heath care, or state-run anything health care?
While you are chanting “keep your laws off my uterusâ€, why would you think of any scheme that would digitize your medical records and transfer control to the state for universal access to be a pretty neat idea? Why would you not be immediately suspicious of abuse?
On the issue of the day, why, while you are thinking “my body, my choiceâ€, would you ever support mandatory beta testing of the new HVP vaccine for Texan school girls?
Sunni Maravillosa brings up just about every objection I’d like to bring to your attention, (so I don’t have to), including the notion that this vaccine is “throughly tested and absolutely safe†is based on the human trials of less than 2000 girls.
The only point she doesn’t bring up is that the governor of Texas bypassed the legislative branch and issued the edict via an Executive Order. Uh yea, what separation of powers?
Oh, and I know that there are a few fscked up people out there that would wish to deny this vaccine to people, if they could, because of strange ideas they hold about premarital sex and hellfire and damnation and all of that, but an uncompromising stand on everyone’s personal body autonomy is so far more the important issue here.
Leah Says :
Here’s my thing (briefly stated) about vaccines versus abortion:
abortion affects pretty much just my body. Sure, it kind of affects the dad (but if I were in a position in which I’d get an abortion, I don’t think I’d tell the dad). Yes, it affects the potential future kid . . . but that kid is still linked to my body for quite awhile. So, in the sphere of personal space, abortion doesn’t really bubble into the personal space of other people.
Vaccines? Whether or not someone chooses to get a vaccine actually influences the other people around them. Yes, if most of the population gets a vaccine, we’re likely all safe via herd immunity. But if the percentage of the population that is immunized drops below a certain percent, we’re pretty much all at risk (those who were vaccinated are at less risk, but still at risk). And that percentage is surprisingly high — maybe 70%? The threshhold might be even higher. Point being, we really need a HUGE majority of the population vaccinated before we can actually think about being decently safe.
Therefore, choosing to not get vaccinated does influence lots of other people, especially as other people make the same choice.
I really ascribe to the personal space notion of government (which, strangely, I learned from a staunchly conservative history teacher) — you’re free to do what you’d like . . . until it interrupts someone else’s bubble of personal space. So, I’m free to fire guns . . . until I fire it at someone else, at which point that is illegal. Under my personal understanding of how I feel the government should work, I am happy to have a vaccine be more or less mandatory.
2007-02-13 10:30 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
That’s a very good point. Although I embrace medical choice and body autonomy, I know there are cases where one person’s private health matters effect another’s.
I don’t, for example, want a TB case to be able to chose to go without care yet still travel freely around this country. Certain people with drug resistant TP should, as far as I’m concerned, have their movements restricted if we can’t be absolutely sure that they will follow the medical regiment that’s needed to cure them. Quick, drastic action might be needed to contain something like Avian Flu, and those measures may very well trample people’s rights.
The difference here is that this vaccine is not throughly tested as of yet and the virus it blocks is not airborne infectious nor is it even spread by casual contact. There’s plenty of people who can, as of now, make their own informed decision on whether or not to beta test this new vaccine on themselves. Let’s get a least a few years of data first, before they make it mandatory for everyone.
Oh, and if the government ever does institute drastic measures to contain a contagious sickness, let’s hope they do so transparently, and with a regard to the detainee’s civil rights (e-access to lawyers, the courts, friends and family).
2007-02-13 11:22 Permalink