Vaccine Mandates and the Removal of Individual Risk Assessment
Who gets to decide which risks they are comfortable with? Do individuals get to decide for themselves and for their families, or do other individuals get to decide for them?
Does a Covid-19 infection carry risk, including the possibility of severe illness and death? Unequivocally yes.
Does a Covid-19 vaccine carry risk, including the possibility of severe adverse events and death? Unequivocally yes.
Clearly, people weigh these risks differently. For many and varied reasons, some are more comfortable with the risk posed by infection, and some are more comfortable with the risks posed by vaccines. My point here is not to try to persuade anyone of which risk I think is greater and why I believe that to be the case. I simply want to ask the following questions:
Who gets to decide which risks they are comfortable with? Do individuals get to decide for themselves and for their families, or do other individuals get to decide for them?
For those who would strongly encourage or even desire to mandate covid vaccinations for other people, understand that you are wanting to step into the place of others to determine which risks they should take for themselves and their families—including their children. We all do well to think carefully here: would you want someone who calculates risks differently than you to determine what is in the best interests of your family, including your children?
What if, hypothetically speaking, public health officials and company leaders decided that the best and quickest way to get past everything related to Covid is to let people acquire natural immunity via infection? And what if these same officials and business leaders decided to mandate that employees NOT receive a Covid vaccine but must instead continue working in the hope that more of their employees become infected in order to bring about such immunity? What if they went one step further and even mandated that employees must NOT wear masks? What if these measures applied to all people, including children in our schools and individuals who desire to go to a restaurant or a grocery store?
Obviously, such measures are not likely to be taken in many places in the U.S., at least not in our current political climate. But some countries (e.g., Iceland) have actually admitted that the only way to get through Covid is to allow herd immunity to develop naturally via infection while making efforts to shield the most vulnerable. So what if, *not* hypothetically, public health officials and business leaders in the U.S. pivoted to adopt a similar strategy? And what if they went a step further and actively prohibited wearing masks and receiving vaccines? Would those who desire to wear masks or be vaccinated want their individual assessment of risk to be overridden by others, even if it is for the so-called public good? I think the answer to that question is unequivocally no.
I share all this simply to point out that these issues are a lot more complex than telling people that they must get vaccinated or that they should always wear a mask to “slow the spread.” People have always calculated risks differently. If we no longer allow individuals to make their own assessments of risk and preserve freedom of medical choice, we need to understand that *someone else* is deciding which risks we must tolerate, whether that be school boards, business executives, or government officials. These individuals may claim that such policies are in the best interests of their employees, students, citizens, etc., but if you are someone who desires to receive a vaccine, wear a mask, socially distance, etc., would you want these individuals to be able to override your own assessment of the risks? Would you still want someone else to mandate decisions related to your health? Or the health of your children?
This is really the point of this post. We all need to consider what it means for others to mandate vaccines and related interventions. Policies enacted for the public good will necessarily infringe on the individual choices of some. And even if you currently favor the covid vaccines and would willingly choose to receive one, there may come a day where these same individuals or entities seek to mandate other treatments or vaccines that you would not want or willingly choose for yourself or your family. It’s easy to support forcing others to do something when it is something you desire and see no problem with. But when your own ability to evaluate risks and make the best decisions for you and your family is taken away in the name of the public good, it may cause you to reconsider whether overriding medical freedom is really the best path forward.
Addendum:
In recent days I’ve seen an increasing number of Christian leaders urging fellow believers to be vaccinated against covid-19, which is not unreasonable if one believes in the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. However, some of these leaders are also openly supporting vaccine mandates from either employers or the government (or both). I desire to judge these leaders charitably, and I genuinely believe most are well-intentioned. But such mandates will not only infringe on medical freedom as outlined above but will also override freedom of conscience for many believers. I’d like to address the conscience issues in another post, but for now I would humbly suggest that Christian leaders should be *very* careful when advocating for mandates that would penalize believers for submitting to their conscience (and thus to the Lord) when it comes to vaccinations and other medical treatments.