Do you have an absolute right to make decisions about your body? Yes or no?
When it comes to abortion, it is extremely difficult to find any prominent Democrat holding national office who would say, "a woman does not have an absolute right to make decisions about her own body!" Tulsi Gabbard tried and was savaged.
But what about when it comes to women being subjected to President Biden's Covid vaccination mandates? If a woman "has the absolute right to make decisions about her own body," how can any president make them for her?
On Sept. 9, 2021, Vice President Kamela Harris, while hosting a Reproductive Rights Roundtable in the vice-president's Ceremonial White House Office, advised the participants that:
"The President and I are unequivocal in our support of Roe v. Wade ... and the right of women to make decisions for themselves, with whomever they choose, — about their own bodies.... the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is not negotiable. The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is their decision; it is their body."
"When people are able to design their lives in a way that they can determine their own futures, we are a stronger democracy and we are a stronger nation.
"When people are able to make choices without government interference for themselves — in terms of their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their family, in consultation with whomever they may choose — we are a stronger society."
But if the president and vice president are indeed unequivocal in their support of the right of women to make their own decisions about their own bodies, and that that right is not negotiable, where do the president and vice president get off telling every woman — not to mention every man in America — that they must, in some cases, wear Covid masks and that they have to get vaccinated under penalty of being discharged from our Armed Forces, or being fired by their employers for failure to comply?
If you are a Democrat, one of Biden's or Dr. Anthony Faucci's disciples, your rational argument will immediately appear:
"The Covid does not only affect the woman. If she contracts Covid she can infect her children, her husband and indeed any person with whom she comes into contact. That transmission can cause sickness, hospitalization and even death to the infected person. Therefore, in this instance, the interests of the state — the public welfare —override the woman's otherwise non-negotiable right to make her own decisions about her own body."
The gist of your position is that a woman does not have the absolute right to make decisions about her own body, if it might cause death or serious sickness to another individual.
If that, indeed, is your justification for the distinction that you draw, then to be logical and rational, you must ask at least the following questions.
"When a woman exercises the right of control over her own body and aborts her child, doesn't that choice absolutely guarantee the death of the child in her womb?"
Is the child in its mother's womb merely a "part" of its mother, like a finger or a mole, or is it a separate human person in temporary residence? Does the child carry its own unique DNA, or does it possess only its mother's DNA?
If your justification for overriding a woman's non-negotiable right to absolute control of her own body, and mandating that women get Covid-vaccinated, is that they might transmit Covid, which might result in another human's death, then how can you justify allowing a woman absolute control of her own body when aborting will with certainty result in the death of the child in her womb? Or don't children's lives matter?
This op-ed does not argue that abortion is never justifiable. Nor is it an argument the State can never mandate public health measures such as mass vaccinations. It is an argument against a government taking utterly inconsistent positions.
Our constitutional right of freedom of speech is not absolute. Libel, slander, and incitement to riot have never been deemed guaranteed free speech.
The right to freely practice the religion of your choice does not give you license to eat your neighbor's children.
Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea
First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on February 4, 2022
First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on February 4, 2022
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