Our bodies, ourselves

“What next? And anything is the answer to that question. If the authorities are permitted to control a health care decision this intimate. . . then what can’t they do? Nothing. They will have total power over your body and your mind forever. What’s the limit to their power? There isn’t one.”

That sounds like Planned Parenthood. It isn't.

Younger Newt Gingrich

(It is Tucker Carlson, speaking against mandatory and forced vaccinations, something no one has proposed.)

Language like Carlson's sounds like the autonomy argument made by advocates of reproductive rights, i.e. people who say that personal decisions regarding sexual intimacy, contraception choices, family planning, and abortion are within the zone of personal privacy. They argue government has no right to interpose itself by banning abortion, which essentially requires a woman who becomes pregnant, from whatever means including rape, to bring the pregnancy to term. Her body, her decision.

Supporters of reproductive rights--I am one--do not argue that abortion is inherently good and a superior form of family planning, nor that the procedure is without potential risks and consequence. We argue that it should be safe, legal, and rare, as Bill Clinton put it. I would add the word "available." Most importantly, the decision on what to do belongs to the woman, not government.

In my own personal way of making that argument I have added a twist, saying "Better her deciding what to do with her own body than some politician, the likes of Newt Gingrich." I picked Newt Gingrich for a reason--the "creep factor." I wanted people to imagine an overweight, aggressive, bombastic politician, who was in the news for dumping wives and leading a House impeachment of Bill Clinton for reasons flowing from Clinton's own sexual behavior. During that very period Gingrich himself was widely known by his own caucus and later the general public, to be carrying on an affair of his own.

Older Newt Gingrich

I thought there might be a kind of bi-partisan feeling of "yuck." Republicans might imagine Clinton and a cigar. Democrats would imagine a smarmy hypocrite pointing a finger.

My argument for a woman's autonomy would be helped by association of politician hypocrisy and the face of Newt Gingrich. State power wasn't antiseptic and faceless. Yes, abortion was a choice, the woman herself or Newt Gingrich.

Tucker Carlson was attacking a straw man, "forced vaccinations."

The attack was occasioned by a brief ad by Barack Obama that made its way to TikTok. Obama said, “The vaccine is safe, it’s effective, it’s free. It’s the only way we’re going to get back to all the things we love from safely spending time with grandparents to going to concerts and watching live sports.” Obama urged young people to get the vaccine.

Carlson criticized the ad in an odd direction. He called Obama old and creepy. Obama is 59; Carlson is 51. Carlson transformed Obama's urging voluntary vaccinations into an imagined threat by some generalized out-of-control state power "authorities" to force people to be vaccinated against COVID against their wills.

“Some creepy old guy telling your children, your little kids to take medicine whose effects we do not fully understand. It’s totally normal, yeah, that happens every day. Don’t ask questions, just do it.”

“What next? And anything is the answer to that question. If the authorities are permitted to control a health care decision this intimate, if they can force you and your children to take a vaccine you don’t want and are afraid of, then what can’t they do? Nothing. They will have total power over your body and your mind forever. What’s the limit to their power? There isn’t one.”

Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine refusal have become center stage in the public talk of COVID. There is new worry about variations. COVID, like the common cold, seems to create new variations quickly. The more people who get the disease, the more chance for variations, and some may be much more dangerous. Variations and mutations are why the common cold is a chronic problem, not one defeated by a cold vaccine. In the U.S. a majority of people want the vaccine, but a critical mass, perhaps one third of Americans don't want to take it, now or perhaps ever. 

The new consensus is resignation that we will never get "herd immunity." We will never be able to go "back to normal" because there is now a prospect that the "new normal" is mask-wearing forever because COVID is forever. Too many people get the disease and spread it so it will never snuff out. The old and weak will keep dying, and maybe new variations will start targeting the young and healthy, the way the Spanish Flu did a century ago. 

The vaccine hesitant and vaccine refusers recognize they are being blamed and shamed. They resent it and are defending themselves. It is a matter of Constitutional rights. Of autonomy. Of privacy.  Don't blame us!  We are within our rights. Don't pressure us. Don't discriminate against us. Don't give privileges to the vaccinated. Don't tread on us.

The argument that has the greatest emotional reaction is to create an image of out-of-control state power. Again, to quote Next Door COVID chatter: 

The truth is the governor didn’t want to give up her emergency executive powers. She had to declare another emergency or her powers would have expired tomorrow. Look at the CDC and John’s Hopkins own numbers. Only 1.77% of infected have died. That’s 0.19% of total us population (using 300 mil as estimate). The entire thing is a scam at this point.

Tucker Carlson tried to add the "creep" element. It makes the act of injecting vaccine that much more objectionable. Humans have an instinctive aversion to putrefaction and defilement. Some things trigger a "disgust" response. We have to learn to eat smelly cheese.

The notion of all-powerful, creepy, interposing "authorities" gets traction from the diminished faith of Americans in institutions of credibility. Fake news. Fake media. Fake experts. Trump sold it and Americans were ready to buy it. Tucker Carlson is selling it now. Biden was dealt a difficult hand. Trump's ongoing insistence that the election was rigged and that Biden's election was fraudulent feeds the widespread doubt about the trustworthiness of all institutions. If nothing is true and reliable, then conspiracies make as much sense as anything else. 

"The entire thing is a scam at this point."