Abortion Advocates Who Abandon "My Body, My Choice" By Favoring Vaccine Mandates Do So For No Good Reason

"My body, my choice." It is a mantra that has defined the modern-day feminist movement, particularly when it has come to the theme of abortion. The idea behind the mantra are the concepts of bodily autonomy and freedom of choice. I thought the idea of bodily autonomy amongst those who are pro-abortion was sacrosanct.....at least until the pandemic came along. What the phrase "my body, my choice" has taken on a different meaning in the political arena. The phrase "my body, my choice" is no longer solely used by the pro-abortion crowd. Those who are anti-mask or anti-vaccination have been using the mantra. This unsurprisingly has been a controversial move. 

The pro-abortion Left is angry at what they view as an appropriation and misuse of the phrase. To quote an article from Vogue, "For Republicans, it's a case of government regulation for thee but not for me." There is overlap between the anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers and those who are anti-abortion. It is inconsistent for those who argued against the "my body, my choice" argument in the abortion debate to use it when it comes to mask mandates or vaccine mandates. 

However, that inconsistency cuts both ways. Many who had been using the argument "my body, my choice" when it came to abortion have abandoned the idea when supporting vaccine mandates. Just to cite some examples, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was recently at a pro-abortion rally in which he said, "You cannot have the government attempt to take away your right to control your body. It cannot happen in America. We have to fight it, every one of us." This is the same Mayor de Blasio that had no problem mandating that all private-sector workers be vaccinated by December 27 of this year. 

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg opined that abortion restrictions are an "infinitely more invasive form of biopolitical control" than vaccines. Actress Whoopi Goldberg also lost it over the Supreme Court's recent abortion ruling because she takes issue when "you tell me what I need to do with my doctor and my family." Goldberg is also in support of vaccine mandates. I am not saying that everyone on the Left is for abortion and/or vaccine mandates, much like not everyone on the Right is against those policies. What I am saying is that the Left is more likely to be pro-abortion and pro-vaccine mandate.

Someone who is anti-abortion but says "my body, my choice" when arguing against vaccine mandates is just as inconsistent when someone who is pro-abortion abandons the argument "my body, my choice" for vaccine mandates. Which of these is more egregious? I would hazard to guess that a lot of that would depend on where one falls on the political spectrum. In any case, it is safe to say that political expediency plays a larger role than ideological purity or caring about the consistency or coherence of an argument. 

In spite of the political Left and political Right being inconsistent, there seems to be a fair bit of legal precedent established in recent years. The Roe v. Wade case notwithstanding, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of bodily autonomy in numerous occasions, including the purchase and use of contraceptions (Griswold v. Connecticut), not being subjected to experimental drugs or therapy without one's consent (United States v. Stanley), refusing medical treatment that can save one's life (Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health), and marrying whichever consenting adult you would like (Loving v. Virginia; Obergefell v. Hodges).   

As nice as it is to cite legal precedent, those who were previously on team "My Body, My Choice" now argue that there are exceptions. A New York Times opinion piece recently made the argument that bodily autonomy is not an absolute. So did the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU, which has traditionally defended abortion with a bodily autonomy argument, did not find the bodily autonomy argument to be compelling in the case of vaccine mandates. Why? Although the ACLU recognizes a fundamental right to bodily integrity and to make one's own health decisions, the ACLU also argues that it is not an absolute. One's right to do something, or to not do something, should not harm others. Since the ACLU views vaccine mandates as protecting others, it is what the ACLU calls a "justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity."

Arguing that freedom has limits is not new, innovative, or radical. When I wrote my 30-plus-paragraph stance a couple years ago on why I am a pro-life/anti-abortion libertarian (with caveats, to be sure), I made that very argument supporting my stance against abortion. I used what is known as the non-aggression axiom. To quote Cato Institute scholar David Boaz, "No one has the right to initiate aggression against the person or property of anyone else." The non-aggression axiom states that as long as you are not directly harming anyone else with your actions, you are free to do what you want with your life. It is an axiom because there are limits, including murder, rape, fraud, and arson. I found that abortion violates the non-aggression axiom because it takes the life of another human being. 

Much like with the numerous pandemic restrictions, "follow the science" does not mean that an experiment is conducted and out pops an answer. What the science does with any health-related policy is that it informs our decision. Beyond that, we make value judgments. In the case of abortion, gestational development informs my view on when life begins. Those who are staunchly pro-abortion draw the line at birth, whereas those who are staunchly anti-abortion draw the line at conception. 

I draw the line at the eight-week mark for two reasons. One, it has developed the human organs and other features that make it discernibly human. Two, that is the point where an embryo becomes a fetus. Abortion is not simply a choice "between a woman and her doctor." If an abortion were more analogous to removing a tumor or a cyst, I would not have a single moral or ethical qualm with abortion. However, that is not the case. The fetus is not a clump of cells or a part of the mother's body. It is a human being with a unique set of human organs and unique DNA.  Whether we decide to give a zygote or a fetus legal standing is a separate consideration from whether they are biologically human beings or not. Again, the science informs our decisions, but does not dictate an answer about abortion policy because there are ethical, moral, and philosophical considerations. 

The same goes for the vaccine mandates. There are other considerations for vaccine mandates aside from the pandemic. There are civil rights, political freedoms, and economic costs to take into account. Also, there are potential side effects from the vaccines. No medical treatment is ever going to be 100 percent. At the same time, vaccines are still very safe and effective, so much so that the risk of getting vaccinated is still significantly smaller than the risk of contracting COVID. For the vast majority of people, the risk of statistically improbable vaccine reactions is outweighed by the risk of contracting COVID and having more than a mild case. Based on available clinical data, I am for people getting vaccinated for COVID. While I am pro-vaccine, I am anti-mandate. 

The explanation for the vaccine mandates, at least the one that President Biden used, is that we need the mandates to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. The vaccines are effective at preventing severe cases of COVID, COVID hospitalizations, and COVID-related deaths. If the vaccines are effective at preventing the nastier parts of contracting COVID, then there is no need to force those who do not want the vaccine. This faulty logic is one of the many reasons I am against the vaccine mandates. 

The ACLU and others who argue for vaccine mandates do so with the assumption that the unvaccinated are much more likely to contribute to the transmission of COVID. If that assumption proves to be false, then the argument for vaccine mandates, and by extension vaccine passports, crumbles. Yes, vaccines are effective at lowering severe COVID cases, COVID-related hospitalizations, and COVID-related deaths. As for COVID transmissions, vaccines are not nearly as effective. 

• Using data from 68 countries and nearly 3,000 U.S. counties, a study from European Journal of Epidemiology found that higher vaccination rates are not associated with lower rates of COVID cases (Subramanian and Kumar, 2021). To quote the researchers, "In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people." 
• In an August 2021 interview with Wolf Blitzer, CDC Director Rachel Walensky admitted that vaccines cannot prevent COVID transmission. 
• An October 2021 article from the renowned Lancet provides insight (Wilder-Smith, 2021), saying that "the vaccine effect on reducing transmission is minimal in the context of delta variant circulation."
• Another Lancet article from October 2021 suggested that those who are vaccinated are just as likely to spread COVID to those in their household as those who are unvaccinated (Singanayagam et al., 2021).
• A preprint case study shows that the vaccinated in Wisconsin have similar viral loads, and that 68 percent of individuals infected despite vaccination tested positive for COVID (Riemersa et al., 2021).
• A case study from a federal prison found no difference in transmission between the vaccinated and unvaccinated, and concluded by warning that public health officials should assume that the vaccinated who become infected are no less infectious (Salvatore et al., 2021).
• Another preprint study showed a modest effect on transmission, but that by three months, the rate of transmission for the vaccinated was comparable to the unvaccinated (Eyre et al., 2021).

The existence of breakthrough cases and how vaccines have little to no impact on transmission rates has important public policy implications. 

1. First and foremost, vaccination status does not indicate whether a person is an active threat as it pertains to COVID. This means that vaccination status should not be used as a determinant to allow or deny access to a service (e.g., restaurant, concerts, entry to a country).  
2. A vaccine mandate is not a form of collective self-defense. There is no way to prove if an individual will be responsible for disease transmission, especially given how commonplace COVID is. Not everyone who is vaccinated develops immunity. As we have seen, it is possible to transmit COVID even when vaccinated. Conversely, some unvaccinated people never become infected. Furthermore, the unvaccinated who have natural immunity seem to have greater immunity than those who only have vaccine immunity. At a minimum, this should help remove stigma against those who do not want get vaccinated.  
3. It illustrates how pointless it is to use COVID cases as a metric for pandemic severity, especially at this stage. Governments should stop using COVID cases as a metric to justify pandemic restrictions, whether that is questionable mask mandates, ineffective travel bans, or lockdowns, the latter of which shows how the cure can be worse than the disease.
4. As safe and effective as COVID vaccines are, the primary benefit incurred is not of a societal nature, but of a personal, individual nature. As such, how we define the policy goal of herd immunity needs to change accordingly. 

I want to be clear that citing the aforementioned studies does not mean people should not get vaccinated. Quite the contrary! People should get vaccinated, even those who have natural immunity because hybrid immunity (the combination of natural immunity and vaccine immunity) provides the greatest protection (e.g., Goldberg et al., 2021; Goel et al., 2021). Even so, we should be honest about what vaccines can and cannot do. Just because vaccines are not particularly effective when it comes to transmission does not negate the fact that vaccines are very effective at preventing severe COVID, COVID-related hospitalizations, and COVID-related deaths. 

However, people should not be mandated to get vaccinated. Part of being free means living with the consequences of your choices, whether those are good or bad choices. People should chose what goes into their bodies, whether we are talking about food, alcohol, nicotine products, or vaccines. I think that remaining unvaccinated is generally ill-advised. At the same time, if we are to remain a free society, then "my body, my choice" (provided that it doesn't violate the non-aggression axiom) needs to mean something. 

In this context, it means that the unvaccinated need to live with the risk and the consequences of remaining unvaccinated. If that means they are more likely to be hospitalized, then so be it. That poor life choice is on them. Or to quote Democratic Governor Jared Polis, "At this point, if you haven't been vaccinated, it's your own darn fault." We do not deny those with unhealthy lifestyles healthcare access. We also do not mandate that people quit smoking and drinking alcohol, exercise three times a week, get at least 7-8 hours of sleep a day, or eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. While health is important, we do not treat it as an absolute. We should learn to live with the risk of COVID as humanity has done with other areas of life. 

Vaccine mandates are not a "justifiable intrusion on autonomy and bodily integrity," especially since vaccines do not prevent transmission in any significant way. There is no compelling case in which people should be forced to take a vaccine or lose their jobs and freedoms if they do not comply. At a minimum, I hope the courts see the folly of vaccine mandates and rule against them. Vaccine mandates do not have a place in a free society and they do not have a place in a society that ought to care about the results of scientific findings.