I’m going to go out on a bit of an ethical limb here, and share a thought that is a strong leaning but not an unchangeable or irrefutable conclusion. I am against mandatory vaccines (except in places where vulnerable people have no other choice but to be, hospitals and long-term care facilities for example).
Before I explain why, you should know that I affirm the importance of getting vaccinated (I’m triple vaxxed) and I believe that the evidence for the vaccine’s effectiveness is strong (and that the risks of not being vaccinated are real and potentially devastating). But I’m still against mandatory vaccinations in most cases.
The video I include below, from a professor at Western University whose job is now at risk because she refuses to be vaccinated, is a good place to start. Have a look at the video and hear her plea. Listen to her concerns.
Unfortunately, the professor does not really make any compelling arguments, and she shoots herself in the foot by unhelpfully and fallaciously questioning the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. But I think her basic point is valid regardless of any statements we might make about the vaccine or about covid.
Her point is that no one has a right to force or coerce another person to accept an unwanted and invasive bodily intervention (whether a procedure, an unwanted touch, a treatment applied paternalistically without consent, or whatever). I think she’s right about this. I think that we should consider bodily autonomy to be a nearly absolute ethical value and principle (short of extraordinary circumstances, like the use of force to apprehend and detain someone that commits a crime).
I have served on university research ethics boards and taught ethics seminars to resident physicians. So, I know that one of the fundamental rules of informed consent is that it must be non-coerced to be valid. This is true for medical procedures and it’s true for potential participants in research studies. If a study involves coercion (or even unjustified deception) in anyway, it doesn’t pass the research ethics board evaluation.
So, I simply ask: Is this woman being coerced or under duress, and so inappropriately pressured to accept an invasive violation of her body (by which I mean unwanted, not necessarily dangerous; e.g., an unwanted kiss is not dangerous in itself but it is a bodily invasion and thus psychologically and socially damaging)? If so, we have a problem.
Now, I can anticipate some objections:
– Doesn’t this woman have an ethical duty to others to be vaccinated? Well, perhaps she does. I am vaccinated partially because I feel the weight of this responsibility to others. But that’s not really the relevant question. The question is: should we compel others coercively to be ‘ethical’? If so, whose ethics should we enforce? Especially in a pluralist society such as ours. All kinds of things that are ethically obligatory are not legally required, and all kinds of things that are ethically wrong are not illegal. Regarding vaccines, I’m sympathetic to the argument that we all have an ethical duty to be vaccinated (if normal conditions apply). That does not mean that we should be denied basic civil (and perhaps human) rights if we don’t do so.
– From a Christian perspective, does loving one’s neighbour not require one to be vaccinated? Perhaps it does. But it is un-Christian to force and coercively compel others to act Christianly. (Aside from Christian principles that have parallels in other faiths and worldviews and attain social consensus, and so can be reformulated into general universal laws, e.g., Do not murder).
– Shouldn’t the common good (public health) outweigh the individual’s right to bodily autonomy? I think this is a very dangerous path to go down. I hope I don’t have to explain why. Aside from the dangerous precedents and problems it creates, it also rests purely on consequentialist or utilitarian reasoning, which ignores the possibility of individual acts being morally right or wrong in an absolute sense (the only factor determining the ethical status of the action is the common good – whatever that means). But what if the violation of bodily autonomy is simply always wrong? What if being coerced into receiving a medical procedure is just always wrong?
– Shouldn’t the government and key social institutions enforce what’s in the public’s best interest? Well, this sounds good, but the devil is in the details. Of course, we do use government to do this (it’s the reason Leviathan exists, to allude to Hobbes), but a democratic society must ensure that it does this very carefully and – I’d argue – very cautiously and sparingly. Using the coercive power of the state to enforce the common good should apply at a very general (and lowest-common-denominator) kind of way. To affirm (and legally enshrine) the idea that the government knows better than individuals (and parents and families and legal guardians) how they should live and what they should be compelled to do with their bodies is to put us, collectively, on a very dangerous path.
I know that many are frustrated that some people are refusing to be vaccinated. And I know that there are costs associated with that. But I think that the violation of bodily autonomy (or coercion and duress impeding its resistance) is too high a price to pay to enforce the ‘public good’. Vaccination is a good thing that should be encouraged, but bodily autonomy is a more fundamental good that must be protected.
I think that this whole issue actually points to some more serious and disturbing societal problems. Ultimately, in a rational and free society we all have the burden of convincing others of the truthfulness of our claims. We should always aim to persuade rather than coerce. So, the scientific community needs to think carefully about this. It needs to expand its imagination and work hard to foster trust, build relationships with those who fear or distrust science, and seek to translate scientific data within real contexts and communities, meeting people where they are at and finding common ground on which to build.
Of course, the scientific community is not fully (or even mostly) to blame here. It’s very difficult to convince people of the truth when, by and large, our culture functionally (if not philosophically) buys into moral relativism and is increasingly skeptical about “truth,” believing that it either doesn’t exist or is simply an illusion (the rationalization after the fact of the more basic will to power).
The broader social problem is a disagreement about whether truth exists, how to access it, what legitimate authorities speak knowledgeably about it (a question undermined by authorities overstepping and overspeaking beyond what is legitimate and warranted), and how to build trust between individuals and between communities at local, inter-community, and societal levels. A difficult task, demanding much of us (so, we’re inclined to give up). But without it, all we’re left with is a struggle for power. A struggle to coerce others to our own point of view.
patrickfranklin.wordpress.com 
Thank you for your column, Patrick. Helpfully and clearly stated. Do you see a difference between government mandating something and an employer mandating something? I don’t know if there is such a difference, so I am not trying to make a case with the question — just trying to understand the implications. As I noted in response to Hendrik’s blog, vaccinations and shots of one sort or another have often been required to enter other countries, and I have not heard people characterizing that as a radical infringement on personal freedom. I’m struggling a bit to see why such public health mandates are seen in this way now. Which leads to the question I asked — is it just the same if required by government as if required by an employer?
I acknowledge significant discomfort with mandates. I’m just not sure that they are as bad as some are saying.
Thanks for your question, Daryl. I’ll just give a brief reply. I think the two cases are of a different nature. One’s rights are not violated by being prevented from entering another country. By definition, one’s citizenship in Canada does not give one rights of citizenship in other countries. And access to other countries is not a basic human right either. By contrast, the right to bodily autonomy (and specifically the right not to be violated bodily without one’s non-coerced consent) is a basic right, and the right to work is a human right cited by the UN Declaration. The UN is not legally binding on us in Canada, but arguably it is ethically or morally binding. (Incidentally the rights it specifies are said to rest on basic human dignity, and so they are equal for all and inalienable . . . not resting on conditions other than simply being human).
Your example brings up an interesting question. What do you think about refugees? Let’s say we have a political refugee coming from a country that is totalitarian and violent (maybe, just for argument’s sake, they do eugenics or force their citizens to accept medical interventions because of their vision of the ideal person or citizen) . . . That person might quite naturally be reticent to take a vaccine as a condition of seeking refuge in Canada. Do we force them to do it?
First, reading your blog along with Hendrik’s and Patricia’s persuades me that vaccine mandates are at least problematic, even if they may also sometimes be necessary.
I don’t see the difference — although I am ready to be persuaded that they are different. Or more accurately, I see the cases as at least somewhat alike. In one, a government places a requirement on people entering their territory to come and work with certain vaccinations in place. In the other, a government places a requirement on people wanting to work in specified jobs to have certain vaccinations in place. These look to me like similar cases. How are they different? One difference is that the government in the first case was two other countries in the Commonwealth and the government in the second case is Canada. Is that enough to say that they are simply different? Another difference is that one does not need to travel to another country. I suppose one could add that one can also look for work that does not require the vaccine.
One could ask the same question by referencing the many State mandates that have existed in the USA for children to be vaccinated in order to attend school. These have been more or less widely used, sometimes with ready compliance and sometimes with strong resistance. They have, I think, been common enough for me to wonder what is different this time to make the Covid-19 vaccine so wrong. How is it different from (for example) the measles vaccine?
Your question about someone coming to Canada from another country shows at least that we should be prepared for significant exceptions to the rules that we make. I’m not sure it does away with the rules themselves.
Possibly the key point is that I trust the relevant authorities to make the best choice they can, even if I think they may be mistaken. The various provincial governments have taken different paths. I am inclined to thank each of them (as well as the federal government) for their efforts, and to follow the relevant requirements in my province. I assume we should also then assess the various approaches and refine our efforts in each place to do better. If Alberta and Saskatchewan can help us find a way to open up better, good! If Doug Ford can help us target our closures, good! They will all get some things wrong, but I believe they are also each trying to make the best choice. Not everyone agrees with me, and that disagreement may be more important than other issues. I don’t know. Just wondering.
Daryl,
My response is that the comparison to entering another country just isn’t relevant (whatever other similarities there might be). Being prevented from entering another country is not a violation of one’s rights because one does not have a right to enter another country. It’s neither a human nor a civil right; it’s a kind of privilege. And being prevented is certainly not a violation of one’s right not to be bodily violated without consent. So, it’s just not analogous.
On vaccine requirements, yes schools “require” other kinds of vaccines. But, at least in Canada, there have always been exemptions allowed for medical and religious reasons.
I agree with your comment about the need to trust the relevant authorities (i.e., about the importance, safety, and efficacy of the vaccine). I just just don’t think such “trust” should be forced or coerced.
I should also add that apparently, in Prov’s case, they allow the alternate option of regular testing, which is good. It would be good if they offered the option of teaching via Zoom from home as well. That’s easy to do. All of our seminary courses at Tyndale are online this semester. At Tyndale, they do have a vaccination mandate policy, but also allow for exemptions and accommodations (work from home).