Sorry, “my body, my choice” doesn’t apply to Covid Vaccination.
The year is 2021. We’re facing a new battle, the one that involves the spread of wrongful information regarding vaccination, particularly Covid-19 vaccination. The task of sifting through a sea of information for the useful signal that is easily assessable yet mixed up among misinformation on the internet is a monumental undertaking to say the least. Therefore, it leads some people down the rabbit hole of disinformation and conspiracy theories even when the initial search started out with genuine curiosity.
Vaccination is a battle of information and always has been, what is considered right and wrong and how are the information being disseminated. Most importantly who’s there to monitor the information in circulation. These are the questions that cannot be answered.
Now, let’s take a look at this tweet from Steven Crowder that I came across while scrolling through Twitter a couple of days back and it stuck with me.
Alright, let me start by acknowledging the fact that everyone is allowed to have an opinion on any subject and they have the freedom to share it with the world. But when you have a big online presence with millions of followers, you have the responsibility to ensure that the information and ideology you’re spreading does not harm your followers and those around them.
For those unfamiliar with Steven Crowder, he is a conservative podcaster and political/social commentator who became famous after uploading a series of videos titled “Change my mind”, where he would set up a table with two chairs alongside a controversial banner that says, “All lives matter, change my mind.” He would then wait for passersby to engage with him and make their cases and Steven would then rebut with an opposing viewpoint.
Crowder is a master debater, no denying that. But his comparison of getting an abortion to refusing to get vaccinated is utterly misguided and I’d like to explain why.
Understanding Anti-abortion
Alright, let’s get into the issue with the tweet.
“My body, my choice.”
- A feminine slogan
It’s a phrase synonymous with the issues regarding the freedom for women to have a complete say in what they do with their body, primarily when it comes to abortion. Feminists usually defend an individual’s right of self-determination over their bodies for sexual, marriage and reproductive choices as rights. *
Women, and only women should bear the responsibility of making the final decision on what happens with the embryo they’re carrying in their body. Men should only come into play if the pregnant women choose to discuss it over with their partners. As for me, I would definitely love to talk it over with my partner and go with what she thinks is the best for the relationship.
Let’s dive a little deeper into what the abortion is and why it’s such as controversial subject. Abortion essentially is an act of terminating a pregnancy by removing an embryo or a fetus. Miscarriage is another form of abortion that occurs without intervention and it’s a lot more common than most people realize, as approximately 30% to 40% of pregnancies end up in miscarriage. At the end of the day, everyone has their valid reasons for having an abortion and here are some of the reasons why a person would decide to end the pregnancy.
- A pregnancy as a result of a rape or an incest
- A pregnancy with fetal defects
- An immature pregnancy in which a fetus won’t survive or will suffer after birth
- A pregnancy that is dangerous or bad for their health
- A pregnancy with an abusive partner
- Or just a simple fact that they’re not ready to be a parent yet
One might ask if all of the reasons above are valid, then why are there people against it? Induced abortion has long been the source of considerable debate. These debates are often spearheaded by groups advocating one of these two positions. The group that is opposed to abortion and favors greater legal restrictions on abortion themselves as pro-life, while those who want abortion to remain legal consider themselves pro-choice.
Who’s right and wrong?
Understanding Anti-vaccination
I currently live in a third-world country where Covid vaccine rollout is incredibly slow and abysmal. It’s almost non-existent in some parts of the country. Recently, Myanmar was hit with a third wave of Delta-variant of the Covid infection where millions got sick and many lost their lives. Unfortunately, my eldest sister was one of them.
It felt like a hell on earth for the month of June-August. People were lining up for hours to get their oxygen tanks filled up and rushing to get medicine and medical treatment for their loved ones that are sick. Everyone with a little bit of money is rushing to get vaccinated as the vaccines become scarce and the cases climb through the scale. It was a complete chaos.
Then you look at the news to see people acting like children opposing the mask mandate and vaccination in rich first-world countries particularly in the United States of America and Europe. They usually claim personal freedom as their reasons for not wanting to wear masks and get vaccinated. How ridiculous!
“Personal liberty doesn’t matter when you die.”
- A doctor
When Covid vaccines were first made available to general public, there were claims of nanochips being included in the vaccines so that the Big Brother could keep an eye on yah! Gone are the days when people exercised self-discipline and self-education before making a fool of themselves in public. However, we have enabled great many people with little to no background in science or medicine to project their voices so loud that it overpowers logic and reasons that are backed by scientific facts and findings.
The worst part is that they’re not considering what their actions would do to those around them. One man’s decision not to get vaccinated can have serious consequences. He could catch the virus and unknowingly spread it among his community, allowing the virus to mutate and create a new strain that could become resistant to the vaccines we have at hands. Therefore, making it even harder to eradicate the virus entirely.
Most people that are hesitant to get vaccinated have genuinely fear of getting sick from the vaccines due to the potential allergic reactions that occurs to the body. However, it has not been proven that Covid vaccines could result in permanent damage to an individual’s health. According to CDC, the most common reactions include pain, swelling on the arm to tiredness, headache, and fever for the first couple of days after receiving the injection.
Some people are going so far as to prove that Ivermectin, a medication that is used to treat some parasitic diseases for ANIMALS, can be used to treat Covid. At this point, why not just get the vaccine that has been developed and tested by the scientists in the lab and approved by the World Health Organization and FDA.
Why it’s an absurd comparison?
Yes, in essence the phrase “My body, my choice” applies to both situations. People that are choosing to abort the embryo in their bodies are exercising the same freedom as those that decided not to let someone inject a vaccine into their arms.
But here’s the fundamental difference between the two. A pregnant woman who exercises her freedom by getting an abortion doesn’t hurt anyone else by the act. On the contrary, a person who isn’t inoculated could end up spreading the virus to those they come in contact with and inevitably prolong the pandemic by exercising their “personal freedom”.
Therefore, it’s absurd to draw the comparison of a woman exercising her rights to get the abortion and someone refusing to get vaccinated by using the slogan “my body, my choice”. There is a real impact in the words that come out of the mouth of those with social and political influence. So, the responsibility lies with the influencers that spread the wrong information on the vaccines and thus they should be held accountable for thousands of ICU cases and deaths that resulted from their rhetoric.
I hope this resonate with some of my readers out there. If you have a different view on this subject, I’d love to hear about it. Share it with your friends if you like this and want more of it in the future.
As always, stay safe and stay curious!
This article was originally written and posted on my blog @ Jonathan Fort.
