I would challenge anyone that the growing sentiments towards the forcible vaccination of unwilling citizens is not a public health issue but rather a moral one.
Morality is defined by Dictionary.com as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong and good and bad behaviour”.
We have been told from childhood, that doing right and acting right are what makes us moral individuals. Moreover, we were always told that the ends never justify the means. In other words, regardless of the enormous good that would result from our action, accomplishing that supposed good by doing an immoral act does not make the results good. This is why money laundering is not good. This is why sweat shops are not good.
So, if your mother is in desperate need of a kidney to save her life, taking a random stranger’s life to get her a kidney, will never be morally justified. I doubt anyone would look on such act as a loving gesture to your mother. I daresay that most people would be repulsed by such action.
Likewise, we have been told not to imbibe any substance that may harm our body because that would not be considered good and acceptable behaviour. There are laws against you and me taking “illegal” drugs that will harm us. Naturally, I assumed that a drug is declared “illegal” because it is harmful.
Many a Rasta and Marijuana smoker has been arrested and jailed for simply possessing an “illegal” drug. Some jurisdictions would even put you to death for possessing “illegal” drugs.
What I draw from all of this is that abstaining or refusing to take a drug that I consider harmful or potentially harmful to me would be considered a very moral thing to do in the sight of the law and society. If I abstained from taking harmful drugs, I would have assumed that I behaved in a manner that is right and acceptable by law and the society at large.
It however cannot be refuted, regardless of how rare, that these vaccines (drugs) may be harmful, even fatal, to a very small number of individuals. Therefore, if you feel that a drug being offered to you could potentially be harmful to you, should you not be allowed to exercise your God-given, moral right to refuse it?
It is as an unfortunate contradiction that for simply following your moral instinct, you are now told that you need to do the “responsible” thing by taking a drug that you feel may be harmful to your person. It is very convenient to be nonchalant and declare that only a small minority might suffer statistically, forgetting that those that suffer are real, living people, who will be left to bear the consequence alone.
When you cut through the rhetoric, what you hear is: not putting yourself at risk is putting others at risk. Taking a drug that could potentially do harm to you is now a justifiable means to a public health end. I would put it bluntly by concluding that it is justified to commit suicide for the public good!
I can no longer agree with my history teachers that the ancient people were barbaric to sacrifice one of their own to appease the gods, who if not taken seriously could cause imminent and catastrophic disaster on the whole population. This rationale is no different to what I am hearing today. We cannot fairly call such people barbaric. They too had a public welfare crisis!
Sacrificing a single human was justified to appease the wrath of the gods. After all, the death of one human is well worth the lives of thousands of other humans. It is the best we can do for humanity’s sake! For them, the end does justify the means in this instance. Indeed, they reason, it is for the common good!
You may choose to dismiss the human sacrifice illustration as comparing two different things. I would just like to remind you, that the leaders of today are no better predictors of impending disaster, even though, like their ancient predecessors, they would never admit.
Does simply saying that we have a “public health” issue, constitute justifiable grounds for suspending the moral principles that have been established throughout time? When the Rastas for years have argued that taking Marijuana was part of their religious rite, did that matter to the lawgivers? Countless law breakers were caught and locked up, regardless.
It appears to me that there is a major moral question here.
I always thought that morality was based on godly principles that were absolute and timeless. However, I am being persuaded to believe that morality is circumstantial: it depends on the whims and selective interpretation of imperfect government officials, acting ostensibly in the public interest.
In my opinion, the moral dilemma we find ourselves, is fraught with contradiction.
I do and still believe that the ends never justify the means, regardless of good intentions. To ignore this principle would put our society on a slippery moral slope. History has demonstrated that is was a number of seemingly innocuous compromises of natural principles that eventually culminated in the terror of Adolf Hitler.
It appears to me that the lesson we are being taught is that once an imperfect government official says it is “good”, regardless of how immoral it is, it must be ultimately good. Again, history is littered with examples of this myth.
Let us not forget that slavery was ok by government decree, even though it was an immoral act.
Let us not continue to demonize individuals for simply exercising the good moral judgement that they have been taught.