Funny how quickly they dump “my body my choice”
You do not have the ‘constitutional right’ to refuse the Covid-19 vaccine
Now that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer/ BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, it’s time for all governments across the country to mandate the vaccine for people taking part in indoor activities. There are no more valid excuses for not being vaccinated other than health reasons.
One frequently heard pushback against vaccine mandates is that there is a “constitutional right” to choose whether to be vaccinated or not for adults and a right to determine whether children can be vaccinated. That is a non-starter in the midst of a pandemic.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact guaranteeing a right to harm others. The government has latitude to protect citizens from deadly conditions, especially when the science supporting vaccination is so clear. (snip)
With respect to children, parents do not have carte blanche. At one time, children were the property of their fathers, but that is no longer the case. Children are “persons” under the Constitution, and as the ruling in Prince v. Massachusetts held, parents do not have a constitutional right to make martyrs of their children. Parents have an obligation to protect their children’s health and life, which means that the school district mandates that reduce the risk of death to children should be enforceable, period.
They’re making the case that the Government can vaccinate your children with a vaccine that is showing lower and lower capability to protect people from getting COVID, unlike required vaccines for smallpox, measles, and others required for schooling. Vaccines that virtually no one objects to.
Those challenging the government mandates are likely to invoke their rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, which protect speech, religion, and a right not to “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Their view ends up as a snapshot of themselves; nonetheless, rights can be limited if a person is endangering another.
It’s a sentiment that came up in the 1905 Supreme Court decision in the case Jacobson v. Massachusetts. The court ruled against a man who had refused to be vaccinated against smallpox, stating: “Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own (liberty), whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.” That same principle was apparent when Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is thought to be a strong rights-advocate, left standing Indiana University’s vaccine mandate.
Of course, basic smallpox has a death rate of 30%, quite a bit higher than COVID. Other forms of smallpox are almost guaranteed to cause death. The mortality rate for COVID is all over the place in studies, but, looks to be under 1%. Spanish Flu of 1918 had a much higher mortality rate. Smallpox vaccine has a very higher rate of success.
We would posit, further, that governments that don’t mandate vaccination against Covid-19 are skating very close to violating the standard for a constitutional right to “life” without due process. If a government does not take reasonable action to prevent the likely deaths of so many people, there will be more lawsuits. Already, we’ve seen schools filing lawsuits against former Trump administration officials and individuals suing the World Health Organization contending that they mishandled the Covid-19 response.
Well, they were doing so well in making the case, right up till they said the Government must force you to get vaccinated For Your Own Good. All that drivel about my body my choice, body autonomy, and the rest went right out the window of the cruise ship and sank to the bottom of the sea.
Children and adults have a constitutional right to “life” that can only be protected if there is mass vaccination. It’s time for state and local governments to issue vaccine mandates and fines — as New York and San Francisco have — before this virus mutates into an even more elusive killer than it already is.
And it would be an interesting Constitutional case. Barrett may have had a case regarding the Indiana University mandate, but, for all citizens? The Constitution assigns duties to the federal government, and the Bill of Rights restricts what they can do. Politically, though, would any politician have the cajones to mandate the vaccine at a large scale? Doubtful.
Whenever one has a serious question about the Constitution obviously the first place to go for an explanation is CNN.
Bwaha! Lolgf
That’s because the CPUSA was unavailable for comment.
The 1905 decision in Jacobsen v Massachusetts was rather before the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v Connecticut, (1964) so that argument kind of falls flat.
But, let’s assume that his point that there’s no constitutional right to refuse the vaccine; just how would the government enforce such a thing? Would the government send the Staatspolizei door-to-door, armed with needles? Would the government seize all school children — many still too young to be vaccinated anyway — to give them the jab? Would the unvaccinated be thrown into prison until they complied?
One wonders if the next unconstitutional mandate toward total Fascism will be that in order to vote one must have proof of vaccination.
Citizenship will no longer be required.
#ForYourOwnGood
#TrustUs
Bwaha! Lolgf
But, let’s assume that his point that there’s no constitutional right to refuse the vaccine; just how would the government enforce such a thing?
Jacobson was not about the smallpox vaccine per se. The question in Jacobson was whether Jacobson’s conviction of not being vaccinated under a Massachusetts law was legal and whether the penalty for not being vaccinated ($5) was legal.
Jacobson argued that “his liberty is invaded when the state subjects him to fine or imprisonment for neglecting or refusing to submit to vaccination.â€
The Supreme Court ruled that the State of Massachusetts was within the Constitution to fine people for not obtaining the smallpox vaccine. (Two states – Georgia and North Carolina – enacted recurring fines and or imprisonment for failure to be vaccinated. Both State Supreme Courts upheld those provisions. Neither case made it to the US Supreme Court.)
That would be the enforcement mechanism – repeated fines and or jail time. (Most likely repeated fines.) It should also be said that Jacobson did not give the government unfettered ability to require vaccination as medical and work exemptions were allowed.
While Griswold v Connecticut does introduce the concept of the “right of privacy,” the Court opined that such a right exists only in situations where traditional privacy rights were in place – such as in the marital bedroom. It did not say the right of privacy (as is the case with any right) is absolute.
The Court had previously ruled that a person’s body was not private in all instances. That case was Roe v. Wade.
Would states have the right to demand that people get vaccinated and inject them if they aren’t? Probably not.
Would states have the right to fine / imprison those who are not vaccinated? Arguably yes.
…except for the minor point that school-age children have a just-about-zero chance of catching the Wuhan Flu, which shoots down their entire point.
But it’s CNN. Likely they have fired anyone with any brains long ago.
But they don’t fire guys who can’t keep their dicks in their pants during a zoom call, so we know what’s important to them.
The game plan has always been to promote hysteria and panic never to “protect” anybody. We can see that by the mask less parties thrown by our elite betters from coast to coast.
With the radical left it’s always about power, projected and perceived. Hell, several of our own commenters here will submit to whatever the government says because they believe the “experts” who are really only government bureaucrats who slept at a Holiday Inn last night.
Hell, Elwood once comment here he would give up his (thousands of $$$) worth of guns if the government mandated it and forced the rest of too. We all know that if he wanted to surrender his firearms he could do it today so his real intent is to get ours.
Any disease with a survival rate of 98% that causes this much economic and Constitutional pain is a fukin scamdemic. Period.
The 3BM run around screaming how WE owe it to our fellow Americans to get vaxed and wear masks but they never did that for the standard flu which has a greater infection and mortality rate most years.
BTW, fact is that 2% mortality rate with the Red Chinese flu is ONLY in combination with other co-morbidities. So those numbers are all BOGUS!
As I saw- “my body, their choiceâ€
[…] Suk Gerse then dives into much of the same information from the article I posted from CNN yesterday. Surely there’s no coordination between news outlets in pushing this, […]