It’s that time of year again… When everyone and their dog presumes to ascend to the moral high ground and know what is in your best interest; It’s virtue-signaling– I mean– flu season! Whether you choose to vaccinate or not, I don’t care. It is and should be absolutely up to your personal discretion what you choose to put into your body. That said, I believe that decision should be based on fact and not social justice, fear-mongering- virtue signaling of the media.
My local paper…bless their hearts…leaves much to be desired. In addition to attributing this article by a Vietnam veteran to 35-year-old Ben Shapiro, (how does that happen?)
They frequently pad the paper with fluff “news” and opinion pieces.
But what gets my goat is when virtue signaling emotional appeals to consider the greater good are disguised as informed, researched editorial articles.
This piece, imported from The Greenville Sun, is just rife with not only inaccuracies to push a “get a flu shot” agenda, it’s statistical sources are vaguely cited (by the CDC), and the inflammatory language used intentionally evokes feelings of fear to motivate you to specific action- in this case, getting a flu shot.The article title, “Isn’t your well-being important enough to get a flu shot?” is enough to provoke the listener to think that their well-being not only depends on a flu shot, but implies not getting a flu shot makes you careless, irresponsible, reckless, self-loathing, amoral, or a danger to others. The entire sentiment of which is preposterous applied to any other subject. Is it my responsibility to prevent poor drivers from wrecking? Women don’t frequently accept that it is their responsibility to dress modestly to alleviate their potential of objectification by men. It’s seen as the man’s responsibility to control his own behavior, not the woman’s responsibility to take preventative measures. The logic is flawed because it’s built upon a lie. Why do we only care about communal responsibility when it comes to the flu but not when it comes to abortion? “Don’t Think of the children!!”I understand immune compromised, pregnant individuals being more vulnerable to influenza infection– I am an immune compromised pregnant woman. It appears that the “my body, my choice” rhetoric applies only to women seeking to terminate their pregnancies and wilfully take the life of their child, and not to those of us who intend to nurture our bodies and babies and carry our children to term without the injection of foreign matter into our bodies.The lie is that the flu is potentially fatal in pregnancy… EVERYTHING IS POTENTIALLY FATAL IN PREGNANCY! That’s the nature of pregnancy! It’s sacrificial, it makes the woman vulnerable. That’s the world we live in. The truth is that in the pandemic flu season of 2009-2010, we saw a significant increase in the number of pregnant women taking vaccines…this coincided with a significant increase in the number of flu related and possible flu related maternal death. And yet, we’re calling the vaccinations a success? The journal article I’m pulling stats from thinks so. I remain unconvinced.
During the pandemic season, we identified 915 pregnancy-related deaths and 4,911,297 live births. Seventy-five (8.2%) women died as a result of confirmed influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 infection deaths and 34 (3.7%) women as a result of possible influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 infection deaths. The pregnancy-related mortality ratio for confirmed and possible (combined) influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 infection deaths was 2.2 per 100,000 live births.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557717/#!po=5.55556
Even if the number of maternal deaths related to flu reached 1 in 10, that is still not statistically significant when looked at maternal death on the whole, in this study which doesn’t factor in underlying risk factors such as advanced maternal age (35+, which the majority of flu-pregnancy related deaths were), diabetes, asthma, etc.
Twelve percent of pregnancy-related deaths were attributed to confirmed or possible influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 infection during the 2009–2010 pandemic season.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557717/#!po=5.55556
I recognize the personal responsibility of each individual to look out for their own health. And I refuse to be held accountable if they don’t.The author of this newspaper article didn’t read any medical journals. They parroted stats and figures they found presumably by Googling ‘CDC Flu Information’, and sought to evoke emotional response as people spiral into clinics for their “free” flu shots (completely covered by most insurance plans, btw).The funny thing is that the end of the article deserts the title’s premise entirely by appealing to the greater good; if you won’t get a flu shot for yourself, do it for others! Do it for the children! Are you willing to risk being the cause of someone else’s illness??At what point is it my responsibility to inject ANYTHING into my body for the potentiality that it may keep someone else’s body from getting sick? It’s not. To place that responsibility on anyone is weighty and self-righteous. Why is someone else’s poor health MY responsibility? It’s enough for me to think about my own health and that of my children. Injection of foreign matter into my body goes well beyond the call of common courtesy. But there is a place to practice common courtesy and consideration of others. Here’s what I WILL do out of common courtesy:
- I will wash my hands with warm soapy water and practice good hygiene.
- I will cover my coughs and sneezes and teach my children to do the same.
- I will respect your personal space to cut down on germs passed through close contact.
- I will keep my children (and myself) at home if they are running fevers or otherwise unwell and potentially contagious.
- I will ensure me and my family eat a healthy balanced diet to maintain a strong immune system.
- I will try to make sure my household gets plenty of water and rest to keep our bodies from being succeptible to illness and generally run down.
- I will live free; free from fear of physical illness because I know it’s an inevitability in this fallen world; free in following my convictions based on time spent researching statistics; free to practice autonomy over my body and what goes into it; free to make decisions based on fact and logic and not purely emotional response.
- I will not criticize you if you made the decision to accept a flu shot.
- I will not laugh in haughty derision if you vaccinate and happen to get the flu anyway– even though the statistics show that’s a distinct possibility.
Wholly Holy Living 