Compulsory Immunization Resurrects Philosophical Ghosts of the Past

I don’t write about my health, it seems like a very personal topic to me. But when I discovered that I would not be allowed to register for classes in the fall until I received “necessary” immunizations, I became irate.

Who, after all, should be able to decide if immunizations are necessary? Apparently, the University of Alabama thinks itself competent to make that judgment for me.

In a conversation with a senior official at the student Health Center, I was advised that the immunizations required by the University are “fairly common” and that our policy is not unlike the policies of other institutions around the country.

Roughly ninety years ago, the University was in lockstep with the world in requiring “mentally deficient” people to undergo sterilization. And nurses and doctors, like the ones I spoke to when I was coercively injected, were saying “we’re just doing what they tell us to.”

Now, there is a big difference between forced immunization and forced sterilization. Immunization is probably a lot more beneficial to the individual than sterilization is. But both practices are rooted in the same philosophical premises:  1) That a bureaucrat knows what’s best for an individual’s health and 2) That it is justifiable to force someone to undergo medical treatment for the sake of society.

When I spoke with the health official at the Student Health Center, she repeatedly stressed that the immunizations were for the “safety of you” and the “safety of those around you.”

Shouldn’t I be allowed to decide what is safe for me and you what is safe for you? The second issue is not so simple.

When should society be allowed to compel people to receive treatment for the benefit of society? I contend that there is no justification, even in times of emergency, for the use of force (or even coercive tactics) to compel an individual to undergo treatment.

Some of you will say, “but immunization is good for you and others around you.” No doubt that is true, but forcing (or coercing) someone to undergo treatment is inherently wrong. When society begins making decisions about individual people’s health, they are in essence forcing the individual’s conscience, forcing an individual to declare (whether they agree or not) that they need the treatment.

An individual is the only unit of justice or happiness. To declare that justice is being done for society or the overall happiness of society is being improved by forcing someone to undergo treatment is to say that it is the overall happiness that matters more, the overall amount of justice that is important.

When we begin to make such claims, it becomes justice for the dominant public that becomes important, the happiness of the dominant public that matters most. The individual who disagrees does not matter, their concerns can be marginalized in the name of ‘social justice’ or ‘overall happiness.’ 

And in the end, no one is happy and no one receives justice when the happiness of the individual and justice for the individual is not considered.  

When I asked about an exemption based on conscience, I was told I would have to have a “clergy person” write a letter. As an atheist, I found it incredibly demeaning that my conscience should be more or less declared invalid because I do not have a religious leader. This doesn’t just affect me, there are plenty of people out there who are clergy-less, some religions do not even have formal clergy.    

The medical official at the student health center was not prepared to comment on this issue.

All I ask of people in power is that they consider the philosophical basis for their policies. I’m fine getting immunized, I might have gone in willingly in any case. I am not fine with being forced to. And the claim that “those around me” are benefiting does not justify my oppression by dominant norms.

Today, I am not proud to be a student at the University of Alabama. We should have policies that encourage, not coerce, students to become immunized; we should be sensitive to alternate belief systems; and above all we should not use the same justifications for fairly routine immunizations that were once used to forcibly sterilize minorities on this campus.

Margeret Thatcher: A Legacy for All People

The politically liberal, Marxist, essentialist feminists out there are about as eager to jump on the corpse of the late Baroness Thatcher as vultures on a recently dead animal. It is claimed that the late Baroness did nothing to represent the collective interests of women; that she reduced the size of the welfare state and somehow harmed women in the process (See the Guardian article below).

I have a bit of news: there is no such thing as the collective interests of women. There is no characteristic of the feminine gender which renders women less capable of supplying their own needs than men.

Only the most disgusting ideological essentialism says that women are inherently weak and need the state to protect them, thus justifying state aid to raise them above the squalor of poverty.

Women have volition. They can choose how to act and behave as rational actors who defend their own self-interest in the free market. The fact that one is born a woman does not determine one’s status in life and does not make one automatically deserving of the aid of the community.

It is often said that the feminist movement(s) have a choice between attempting to elevate domestic work to the same status as labor outside the home or arguing that women should be allowed to leave the domestic realm and engage in non-domestic labor.

For those who want to elevate domestic labor and all of the other essentialized qualities of women to the same status as work outside the home, Margaret Thatcher is a bad example of a feminist.

A woman who had children and yet bridged the gap between being a mother and a politician doesn’t make for a great example of the oppressed woman that the Marxist feminists are looking for.

It is equally true that Thatcher is not the historical norm. In her day, many women with children found it very difficult to have a life outside the home while also raising children. If anything, that should make Thatcher a great example, a heroine of sorts for women who do have children.

If Thatcher did not want to be recognized as a woman, but for the policies she implemented, all the better. That suggests that she did not view her gender as a significant marker of her identity and we would all be the better for living in a world where everyone felt that way about their gender.

In any case, it is wrong to villainize Thatcher as anti-feminist because she believed in free market principles. One does not have to support a ‘feminist ethic of care’ in order to believe that one should not be discriminated against on the basis of one's gender.

  

In fact, I would argue that it is far more productive to look at women as essentially equal and capable of representing themselves in a free market place than it is to coddle them with state subsidies to help them overcome the supposed barriers imposed by gender.

One can be a libertarian feminist; it’s just not in style these days in an academy dominated by the fragments of Marxist and Frankfurt-style political thinking.

And I have to add as a student of communication that if ever you thought there was such a thing as the “feminine style” of communicating; that women somehow communicate differently (perhaps more kind and understanding?) than men. Or if you think that women cannot wield power in a ‘manly’ way, then please purge your essentialist mind and watch this video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVt_1ByddUQ

Rest in Peace Baroness Thatcher, may your spirit chastise those members of your own gender who haven’t the sense to realize your contribution to their own liberation.  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-no-feminist

A much better article that describes Thatcher in more sympathetic terms:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/08/margaret-thatcher-feminist_n_3036864.html