The whole “my body my choice” is perfect for polarisation, as you can be outraged because:
- People are being forced into medical choices for their own bodies.
- or
- People are making selfish choices that can cause harm to can harm others.
Whatever you believe, “my body my choice” drives polarisation. I will look into each of the arguments later, but a key question is, why are we having such heated arguments today, when vaccines for diseases such a measles were accepted years ago.
Once your choice effects other bodies, or their sense of safety, it gets complex. Effort should be made to accommodate choice, but without negatively impacting others.
However, both sides of the argument are not only strongly promoted, but deliberately oversold by those pulling the strings.
- Alternate Data: The Core Of My Body My Choice Polarisation Polarisation.
- There Are Valid Arguments For and Against Vaccination.
- The Dark Side: Who is pulling the strings?
Alternate Data: The Core Of My Body My Choice Polarisation.
Is there any advocate of “my body my choice” who feels people potentially carrying Ebola should not be restricted from moving freely in the community until cleared of the disease? Perhaps, but not many.
The main source of outrage is based on beliefs that:
- Claims of the threat posed by Covid-19 are either fabricated or exaggerated.
- and/or
- Threats posed by the vaccines and vaccination are understated.
The majority of those rallying or motivated against by the “my body my choice” this slogan are convinced their vaccination status will have no negative impact on others, and people rules and regulations are forcing potentially dangerous vaccinations on people for no valid reason. There is a moral obligation to protest that people are being placed in danger for no valid reason.
Those motivated against this slogan see unvaccinated people are a threat to community safety. People are being placed in danger by the protestors for no valid reason. The can be belief that those protesting are immoral and a threat to lives.
It is a perfect storm.
In reality, there are valid arguments both for and against vaccines. There are even situations where the risk reward ratio is questionable. But a key difference between this debate, and many previous health care debates, is that there is a multi trillion dollar industry that increases the key metric “engagement” by feeding polarisation. AI programs promote whatever information increases “engagement” and it turns out “my body my choice” is the dream of social media billionaires, and even more effective than promoting that the Earth is flat. The “influence industry” has made fortunes beyond what the world has before seen, largely from outrage and polarisation
In reality, “my body my choice” is moral or immoral depending on a complex set of factors on the risk if the virus, the risk of spreading the virus, and the risk to others. But as an outcry that divides those not wanting vaccination, from those who are vaccinated, it is unmatched.
This is just playing into the hands of the outrage industry.
There Are Valid Arguments For and Against Vaccination or “My Body My Choice”.
For “My Body My Choice”: Vaccination is Risk/Benefit Calculation, and no one should be Forced to Take The Risk.
Vaccinations are not without risks. The risk from vaccination is a fraction of the risk from infection, but that means there is a ratio between the risks. It is not zero risk for vaccination and perfect outcome for vaccination against overwhelming risk from infection, but a ratio of risk for an imperfect outcome.
Further, the ratio of the risks varies with age, with younger people more susceptible to the risks also present from vaccination, and at less risk from the virus.
If eventual infection is inevitable, then the case for vaccination is simple. But what if there are people with only a 1 in 10 chance of ever being infected? Then these people would need a a 10x lower risk from the vaccines.
I have previous pages on vaccines and questioning vaccine safety and efficacy, and an upcoming page on how not all vaccine hesitancy or even refusal is crazy, as well as can unvaccinated people be accommodated without putting others at risk.
But that debate is rational, and there are rational people who are vaccine hesitant, but do they get swept up in the polarisation?
Against “My Body My Choice”: Its Code For “FU, I am not convinced on the science or any risk/protection ratio”.
There is a huge degree of dissatisfaction in society.
The “my body my choice” outrage crystallises feelings of oppression. If you feel oppressed, the ultimate oppression would be to have your own body weaponised by the oppressors? Unfortunately, it may be the oppressors weaponising the protestors.
Just as there was an appetite and a feeling of rebellion and revolution associated with the 1960s, that appetite is again present today. My body my choice channels that desire for rebellion, calling on those with questions on the science and logic to abandon science and logic and “fight oppression”, even if it is not really there.
The Dark Side: Who is pulling the strings?
A difference today is we have social media as a propaganda tool for hire by anyone motivated to direct that appetite for their own political gain.
Consider suicide bombers recruited by to feel so outraged that they sacrifice their own life for a cause, even if the cause is really an illusion. Now, the ability to disseminate propaganda that fuels outrage, is so effective we have people feeling outraged by information suggesting the earth is anything but flat.
Are “my body, my choice” protesters, who protest against science and the establishment, a new front line of “suicide bombers” putting their own lives, and the lives of those around them, at risk for a cause? A cause that to them is even more real than the “flat earthers” cause. At the extreme, they see vaccine as threating the lives of “their people” just to provide wealth to vaccine makers.
Should a suspected suicide terrorist be allowed to freely move among others because it is their choice to risk killing themselves? Or is it ok if their weapon is a virus, not a bomb?
People who fear vaccination or feel the risk to benefit ratio is too high have a right to have their concerns heard, but while this should be done without negatively impacting others, instead rational people, become pushed down a rabbit hole. At the bottom of that hole they find world run by an elite who enlist governments and their populations all to produce wealth for the vaccine makers.
Strange this about this rabbit hole world, is that the vaccine makers are nowhere neat as rich as the social media companies who build the rabbit hole.
Who is really pulling the strings, and who is on the end of those strings. Facebook and other social media companies would never directly pull those strings, but would they allow their AI to drive engagement though polarization pull the strings. Do they even have an obligation to their shareholders to maximise profits by allowing it to happen?
In the end, is the “my body my choice” is just a translation from “I don’t believe the science”, or a declaration “I am now a recruit”.
A politician I find rather annoying announced “Whatever happened to my body my choice”, and my reaction was that of outrage, in this case that a politican