Health Care / Medicine

The Right To Life, Abortion, And COVID Vaccines

We gave up long ago on rational discourse about abortions and vaccines, but here are some thoughts on both.

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Liberals are now assailing conservatives for being inconsistent about the value of life: Conservatives value life when they’re talking about abortion, but conservatives don’t care about life when they’re talking about requiring vaccines.

Here’s the apparent inconsistency: If you agree that a fetus is alive from the moment of conception, then an abortion ends a life. According to conservatives, that is wrong and must be prohibited by the criminal law. The imposition that rule imposes on the pregnant mother — the need to carry a child to term — is irrelevant.

On the other hand, life doesn’t matter nearly as much when thinking about vaccines for COVID: If a person is not vaccinated, then that person (1) runs an increased risk of dying from COVID and (2) increases the risk that COVID poses to the general population because unvaccinated people allow the virus to spread and mutate. Despite those threats to human life, vaccines cannot be mandated:  People have a right not to be vaccinated against their will, and mandating a vaccine offends that right.

(Liberals also assail conservatives for other things they say in this debate: “You can’t shut down the economy to stop COVID!” If the value of life were infinite, then conservatives wouldn’t say that. “The people dying of COVID were generally old and sick anyway; the deaths don’t really count.” Again, that sentiment seems a little callous if you believe that every life is sacred. I’m going to put those arguments aside for now.)

My question is this: Is it really inconsistent to oppose simultaneously both (1) permitting abortions and (2) compelling vaccinations?

I’m ultimately not going to take a public position on this — do I look crazy? — but I am going to consider the possible distinctions between these two positions. We should encourage people at least to think intelligently about the issues.

There are two possible distinctions between abortions and vaccination, and they cut in opposite directions.

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On the one hand, the probability of loss of life is far greater in an abortion than in a failure to be vaccinated. If you believe that a fetus is alive, then you know that an abortion will result in the ending of a life. Period. That’s the whole point of the procedure.

But you do not know that the failure to be vaccinated will necessarily result in the end of a life. If someone is not vaccinated, that person must contract COVID despite the lack of a vaccination. It’s not certain that a person will get COVID if not vaccinated, and it’s not 100 percent certain that a person will avoid COVID if the person is vaccinated. Even if a person does contract COVID, the person has about a 98 percent chance of surviving the illness.

One could oppose both abortions and compelled vaccinations on the ground that abortion threatens certain death, but a failure to be vaccinated poses only a small chance of death.

On the other hand, prohibiting abortions infringes far more on a person’s individual liberty than does requiring a vaccine. If society prohibits abortion, then a pregnant woman (or girl) is forced to carry a child, against her will, for many months. That’s a significant infringement on personal liberty.

Not so for compelled vaccinations. If society mandates vaccines, then a person must show up at a drug store, get stuck in the arm, and perhaps feel ill for a day.  Compelling vaccinations infringes far less on individual liberty than does compelling carrying a child to term.

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Could a principled conservative oppose simultaneously both (1) abortions and (2) compelled vaccinations?

It depends how you weigh (1) the certainty versus possibility of death against (2) the degree of infringement on an individual’s liberty. Perhaps certain death justifies tremendous infringements on liberty, but possible death justifies only lesser infringements. Or perhaps not. That’s a fundamental issue on which I’m not choosing a side.

I doubt that these thoughts will change anyone’s mind on these issues. I think we gave up long ago on rational discourse about abortions and vaccines.

But let’s at least make the arguments clear when we discuss the issue.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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