My Body, My Choice
My Body, My Choice
Is the pro-abortion, anti-vaccine stance hypocritical?
How can a person hold the view that they should have total control over their body concerning abortion, but simultaneously not believe that others should have total control over their bodies concerning vaccines? I want to show in this article why I don’t believe they’re being hypocritical. I mean, they are hypocritical if you consider everyone involved a person. They just don’t.
The Drama of It
To many people on the left, the woman is a “victim” of getting pregnant. They have an external locus of control and think pregnancy just happens to them. They believe she holds absolutely no responsibility for it. If you say women should take responsibility for whether or not they get pregnant, they’ll usually bring up the fact that some women are raped, regardless if it’s a very tiny percentage of the reasons why women get abortions.
Motte and Bailey
In the case of abortion, the motte (uncontroversial argument) is that raped women weren’t responsible for getting pregnant. The bailey argument is that they actually want all women to have a lack of responsibility.
So, to these people, women are the “victim” and the fetus and pregnancy are the “persecutors.” Now, they believe a woman will have to go through nine months carrying the fetus to term which is a strain on their body. They may have to take off work, which would be a financial strain. They may not be able to have the same sex life (as pregnancy might scare men off). They may not get their figure back. They may see all this as a prison sentence. Their “saviors” or “rescuers” are the abortion doctor, the politicians who allow them to get abortions, and their fellow feminists who petition for greater rights to abort later and later.
The Dehumanization of the Fetus
People who are afraid or want to feel powerful (because they feel powerless) end up feeling like the ends justify the means. Fearful people make stupid decisions a lot of the time simply because they can’t think of better solutions. It’s because in the fight or flight response the brain shuts down in some ways. People who desire power just don’t care about the morality of the means.
So these sorts of people, when faced with a pregnancy, decide on one action (abortion) and then have a sort of confirmation bias that kicks in. The definition from Wikipedia right now is “the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.” Now, these people find all of the pro-abortion propaganda that says a fetus is not technically “alive” or “human” until born. They compare the fetus to a parasite. What they read doesn’t have to be logical. They’re not thinking logically because of their confirmation bias. So they start to de-humanize the fetus. “It’s not human,” they think. The human, the real victim in this situation, is the woman.
Vaccines
Now, I’m going to show you the “magic” trick they use to believe everyone needs to be forced to get vaccinated, while not feeling hypocritical. First I want to share the general drama triangle dynamics concerning COVID.
The Victims
These people believe that citizens, our “polite” society, are the “victims” of communicable diseases. They believe people have no responsibility for taking care of their own health. If you try to say that everyone has the ability to get vaccinated or wear a mask and ask why they’re so worried about getting sick, they’ll bring up the immuno-compromised. Our normal reaction, prior to 2020, was to protect the immuno-compromised, but let everyone else be free to take care of their own health.
Motte and Bailey
In the case of COVID, the motte (uncontroversial statement) is that immuno-compromised people can’t get vaccines and need to be protected. The bailey argument is that they want all people to have a lack of responsibility to protect themselves.
Now, people act as if we have to protect the whole world, regardless if they could have taken personal responsibility. By taking personal responsibility for your health, I mean that these people would eat healthily, exercise, take vitamins, wear a mask, and/or get vaccinated (and not care whether or not others would). This is really how our society used to react prior to 2020.
The “victims” could get sick or die. Because of the fear-mongering on TV, many people highly overestimated the risks when asked what the chances of hospitalization from COVID were.
"In August (2021), Gallup surveyed over 3,000 U.S. adults on their understanding of the likelihood of hospitalization after contracting COVID-19 among those who have versus have not been vaccinated. The results show that most Americans overstate the risk of hospitalization for both groups: 92% overstate the risk that unvaccinated people will be hospitalized, and 62% overstate the risk for vaccinated people." from “U.S. Adults' Estimates of COVID-19 Hospitalization Risk”
Because of the excess fear from the media coverage in 2020, I tend to believe this is why people reacted more like victims than they have to any other disease.
The Saviors
There was a large amount of idolatry concerning masks, nurses, and doctors in 2020 because of the fear and feeling like “victims.” I mentioned in the first Intro to the Drama Triangle substack post I wrote that these roles are co-dependent. If someone felt like they had control over whether or not they got sick (like those who exercised, took vitamins, and ate healthy did), there is no need for a savior. But as soon as you feel like you’re out of control, you need to look for a savior, anywhere. Masks don’t work as well as they believed. Nurses and doctors were idolized and could do no wrong in many peoples’ eyes. When the vaccines came out, they too were idolized.
The Persecutor
If you spoke out against masks, vaccines, or tried to say someone should take personal responsibility (taking another drug or vitamin C, D, and zinc, getting exercise, etc.), then you could be labeled a “persecutor.” They’d say you’re spreading mis- or disinformation because it caused “vaccine hesitancy.” I don’t think they ever came up with the term “mask hesitancy” but they probably would have if certain elected officials hadn’t mandated them. If you speak out against any “savior” then you are obviously a “persecutor.”
Since they believe diseases are spread by interacting with other people, they believe that every single person can be a persecutor if they’re not wearing a mask or getting vaccinated.
The Magic Dehumanization Trick
Concerning the abortion issue, they don't see the embryo as a human being. The correlation here is that they don't see the unvaccinated person as a human being.
They see the mother as having the “right” to do whatever she wants with what is inside of her because (to them) it's not human. They see the government/society as having the “right” to do whatever it wants with what is inside of it (its citizens) because they're not really citizens if they don't get vaccinated.
They believe the unvaccinated or unmasked are not behaving like “polite society” and thus shouldn’t really be considered a part of it. They see them as “parasites” draining hospital care from the “true citizens.”
So long as they can “other” the “unvaxxed” as parasites on society, they believe that the government (like the mother) has the absolute right to inject them against their will.
They say the baby will cause damage to the mother if left to grow and be born (whether emotional, financial, or physical damage). They say the unvaccinated will cause damage to the country if left to grow and circulate (whether emotional, financial, or physical damage).
They do see the government as this mother figure, which is why we see Big Brother and the Nanny State growing in “power.” Again, if they feel powerless, like victims of a disease, they need a savior. The more you feel like a victim, the more power you hand over to the “savior.” And so long as you can de-humanize someone (put them into the persecutor role) and say they will cause this damage to society, then you will feel justified in killing them "for the greater good." As far as vaccines they won’t look at the side effects, so they probably don’t believe they’re killing people by vaccinating them.
The Holocaust
This is a part of how the holocaust happened. They said Jews were carriers of Typhus and needed to be segregated from society.
“Nazi propaganda often portrayed people persecuted by the regime as vermin, parasites, or diseases. Nazi ideology focused on the idea that Germany’s "racial purity" was under attack from the "blood of weaker peoples," and Nazi propaganda often depicted Jews, political opponents, and others as parasites that threatened the overall health of the so-called "Volksgemeinschaft" (German racial community).” From Propaganda Poster: “Jews Are Lice: They Cause Typhus”
Lack of Personal Responsibility
The reason people force themselves on the fetus and unvaccinated people is that they feel a sense of powerlessness. Whenever you have a victim mentality you need someone else to blame (to take the responsibility that you gave up). In an attempt to take back power (that they willfully gave up), they force themselves on whomever they describe as a “persecutor.”
If they took personal responsibility, like eating healthier, exercising, and getting vitamins, then they wouldn’t be feeling powerless any longer. Because your power lies in your actions. If women took personal responsibility in order to not get pregnant, then they wouldn’t feel like victims of pregnancy. True women empowerment is taking that personal responsibility. The pro-abortion movement is really a woman’s disempowerment movement. Anything involved in the drama triangle dynamics is disempowering because you’re always co-dependent (a slave) versus independent (free).
What Can Be Done?
You can share this information with people so they know how empowering it can be to take personal responsibility. However, as I explained in the intro post, people find it difficult to extricate themselves from the drama triangle. If someone you know is deeply entrenched in it, it will be impossible for you to get them out. Only they can, because the key to exiting the drama triangle is taking PERSONAL responsibility. You can’t “save” them from it. They have to willfully choose to free themselves from these co-dependent relationships.