Should the government compel covid vaccination?
I thought that this was a very simple case: the answer is no, because people do, or should, have bodily autonomy.
But, apparently, I have found through talking to other people on this other forum, that they disagree.
I will list their main arguments and my responses to them below:
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1. The government already violates bodily autonomy in various ways. For example, people have to wear a seat-belt when in a car, the government can draft people into military service, the government makes people wear a helmet while riding a bike..etc.
My response: Yes, it's true that the government already violates people's bodily autonomy in various ways. However, this doesn't mean we should just go whole log and let them violate it in one more way.
2. The government can force people to take vaccines because vaccines keep other people safe.
My response: your wanting to feel safe is not reason enough to make me take the vaccines against my will, thereby violating my bodily autonomy. This is born out by the fact that we as a society already don't force people to take flu shots. Flu shots prevent people from getting sick, and this helps keep other people safe. But this reason is not enough to justify making flue shots mandatory. And if we don't make flu shots mandatory, then we shouldn't make covid vaccines mandatory.
3. People actually don't have the right to bodily autonomy because it's not enumerated in any authoritative legal document. For example, the Constitution doesn't say that people have the right to bodily autonomy. Neither does any other official document.
My response: whether people have the right to bodily autonomy is not determined by whether any official document sanctions it. Because this is not a legal issue. It's a philosophical issue. You can believe that you don't have the right to bodily autonomy all you want. But I will still maintain that I have such a right.
And I would go as far as saying that the right to bodily autonomy is self-evident. I do not need to point to some passage in some document to "prove" this. And this isn't an unreasonable position, because if you ask an average person in the West, he will affirm that people in the West do have the right to bodily autonomy.
4. The right of bodily autonomy doesn't exist if the government chooses to not enforce it. Therefore you don't really have this right.
My response: I believe that rights are inherent. And just because the government chooses to not enforce them, it doesn't mean that they don't exist anymore. It merely means that the government is trampling on my rights.
5. We are allowed to ignore someone's bodily autonomy, if he poses a threat to my safety and that of those around me. For example, if you point a gun at me, I can defend myself in ways that can be described as violations of your bodily autonomy, such as, I can push you to the ground, forcefully take the gun away from you, or even shoot at you.
My response: that's because someone pointing a gun at you poses a clear and present danger to you. You haven't proven that someone's not being vaccinated poses a clear and present danger to you. You can't just say, well the un-vaccinated could spread covid to me and my loved ones. No. Just because the unvaccinated have the potential to infect you, it does not mean they invariably will. Thus, you haven't proven how they pose a clear, present danger.
6. The government has already mandated other vaccines before. Therefore, it's perfectly ok for them to compel covid vaccination as well.
My response: You need to prove that these covid "vaccines" are effective enough to justify making them mandatory. They don't do nearly as much as the true vaccines (the ones that did get mandated). They also need an indeterminate number of booster shots, which makes them more like flu shots than real vaccines.
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Thoughts? Agree or disagree? Or have anything to add? All are welcome.