I thank the authors for critically engaging with my paper “Ethics of vaccine refusal”.
I agree that personal autonomy does not of itself invalidate medical mandates.
I note that I do not conclude that vaccine mandates are wrong just because they violate body autonomy of vaccine refusers. Rather, ‘mandatory vaccination, immunity passports, or any other form of discrimination on the basis of the vaccination status are defeasible not because they limit basic freedoms and rights but because they discriminate against (and thus devalue) the innate constitution of all human beings.’ Moreover, the premise that vaccine mandates are justified by the value of human autonomy is logically inconsistent: ‘We must, first of all, value our kind ‘as it is’ in order to bestow worth on what we ‘ought to become’, and to pursue any ontological transformation by devaluing the innate constitution of other members of the kind would, paradoxically, negate the value of our own judgement.’ https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2021/03/01/discrimination-on-the-basis-of-vaccination-status-is-inherently-wrong/
It seems the authors interpret the healthy, innate human constitution that includes our immune system - an act of nature that determines our objective identity - as an act of social coercion, which I contend is a category mistake.
For the sake of clarity, I summarise the three strongest arguments against the ethical permissibility of vaccine mandates:
1. Vaccine mandates imply that all humans are born in a defective, inherently harmful state that must be biotechnologically augmented to allow our unrestricted participation in society, which amounts to discrimination on the basis of healthy, innate characteristics of the human race. This devaluation of the innate human constitution is not only universally dehumanising, but it perverts the very concept of human rights; discrimination against the unvaccinated implies that being born human is no longer a guarantee of full human rights.
2. The right to free, uncoerced medical consent is not negotiable, under any circumstances, because without it we have no guaranteed rights at all; every other right can be subverted by medical coercion. Crucially, by accepting any medical treatment imposed by coercion we would be acquiescing to the taking away of the right to free medical consent not only from ourselves but from our children and from future generations, and we do not have the moral right to do this. Acquiescence to medical coercion is therefore always unethical, even if the mandated intervention were a placebo.
3. Vaccines are known to occasionally cause deaths of healthy people. When an employee is required to receive vaccination as a condition of employment, that employee is economically coerced to participate in an activity where a percentage of employees are expected to die ‘in the course of employment’ as a direct result of the mandated activity. It may be objected that infectious pathogens also kill people, but these two categories of deaths are not ethically equivalent. Infection with a pathogen is not mandated, whereas deaths resulting from mandatory vaccination are mandated deaths, a legalised killing of some people for the prospective benefit of the majority. Critically, any discrimination against the unvaccinated amounts to a violation of the right to life, because a small percentage of the targeted population are expected to die as a result of this coercive treatment. By refusing to acquiesce to mandated vaccines we take an ethical stance in defence of the right to life.
This letter is also available on the journal website: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2023/07/28/jme-2023-109426.responses
Thanks for this. I have certain inalienable rights endowed to me by my creator, and my state constitution specifically recognizes that "[t]he enumeration of rights in this Article shall not be construed to impair or deny others retained by the people." My constitution recognizes that "no human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience." Equally important, it recognizes that I have other inalienable rights, which I contend includes right to choose my own medical provider, right to medical autonomy and right to informed consent. The abandonment of ethics and the basic principles of medical ethics in all of this has been astounding, and I encourage all of you to read the rules of medical ethics in your state along with national norms of medical ethics, including where enshrined in federal law. I stand strong with all of you in this battle, armed with the clear unequivocal direction God gave me that what He gave me (natural immunity) was enough and that I should not abandon the teachings I had previously learned. See Romans16:17-18
"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naïve people."
Practitioners are obligated to obtain voluntary informed consent for vaccination, as acknowledged by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) in a letter I received dated 20 September 2021:
"Practitioners have an obligation to obtain informed consent for treatment, including vaccination.
Informed consent is a person's voluntary decision about health care that is made with knowledge and
understanding of the benefits and risks involved."
https://vaccinationispolitical.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/response-from-ahpra-re-informed-consent.pdf
In a letter dated 17 November 2022, the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care has also confirmed to me:
"Informed consent should be obtained for every COVID-19 vaccination, as per usual consent
procedures for other vaccinations."
https://vaccinationispolitical.files.wordpress.com/2022/11/mc22-018819-signed-highlighted-1.pdf
Under 'Valid consent', The Australian Immunisation Handbook notes:
"For consent to be legally valid, the following elements must be present...It must be given voluntarily
in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation...It can only be given after the potential
risks and benefits of the relevant vaccine, the risks of not having it, and any alternative options have
been explained to the person."
https://immunisationhandbook.health.gov.au/contents/vaccination-procedures/preparing-for-vaccination#valid-consent
People who are vaccinated under duress cannot give valid consent.
For more background on the diabolical situation in Australia, see my email to AHPRA: Reckless disregard for voluntary informed consent - the AHPRA Position Statement 9 March 2021, forwarded 31 July 2023: https://vaccinationispolitical.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/reckless-disregard-for-voluntary-informed-consent-the-ahpra-position-statement-9-march-2021.pdf