Re: Vaccines...
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Well, now they are considering equating being unvaccinated to assault...
(snip) Dr. Dan Bustillos, a medical law and ethics expert, teaches at the University of Washington Bothell.
“I totally understand the impulse of not want the government to intervene in our personal actions and behaviors. I think that’s a good impulse. I think it’s very American,” Bustillos said.
“But because of the nature of pandemics and epidemics, vaccination isn’t just about you protecting yourself or taking on the risks of a vaccine. It is about protecting the public and those who can’t be vaccinated for various reasons,” he said.
Bustillos points out we live in a country where there is a limit to our personal freedoms. On the extreme example — laws aim to stop crime. You are not free to assault someone because that’s what you wanted to do with your body.
“In this case, it would basically be saying that people have an individual liberty to get infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and communicate it to others. And clearly, people don’t have that liberty and never did in the U.S.,” Bustillos said.
...“All of our freedoms can be abridged and, arguably, should be abridged when they interfere with other people’s rights,” Bustillos said. “That’s just part of living in a society. We have to respect others, and we can’t go around harming others,” he said.