To what extent do you believe vaccine mandates violate legal
or human rights? What about the rights
of those that are affected by the choice of others to remain unvaccinated? What parallels and differences do you see
between South Africa and Slovakia in this case?
To vax, or not to vax, that is the question. Many argue that vaccine mandates violate our basic human rights, including the right to bodily integrity. Personally, I believe in science and therefore believe in the purpose of vaccination, what is more I also understand the importance of getting vaccinated in order to curb the spread of the virus. For me, getting the jab was a no-brainer, especially with the Delta variant being so potent. Not only does it mitigate the effects of covid, it also protects others around me, which I deem to be even more important.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I do not believe that making vaccination compulsory for everyone is the way to go. Just as the author of the article, Safura Abdool Karim, stated I, too, strongly advocate for incentivising people to get vaccinated, rather than enforcing it, by requiring proof of vaccination for certain activities and some sort of penalisation for lack thereof. For instance, the article mentioned a similar circumstance regarding the yellow fever passport, which simply meant that people that wanted to travel to areas where yellow fever was a risk factor, they would have to get vaccinated, otherwise they would be prohibited from travelling. One might still argue that by doing doing so you would be violating their human rights, however, by not getting vaccinated, you are not only putting yourself at risk, but others as well, violating their elementary right to be protected from the spread of the virus.
Personally, I do agree with the title of the article as I too believe that the Covid vaccine mandates don't have to and probably don't undermine individual rights. First, we need to acknowledge the fact that the vaccines statistically save lives and I believe it shouldn't even be a discussion as it is considered a speculation or a conspiracy theory to argue otherwise. Although, on other hand it is claimed that the vaccines are harmful to people in some specific scenarios. I wouldn't argue this claim and I would even agree with the fact that vaccines could potentially bring about undesirable side effects, but I am of the opinion that the percentages are maybe even negligible. Therefore, it makes sense to make vaccination mandatory in South Africa to work in some medical fields or to study in a school environment especially for the children enrolling into schools. Furthermore, the Department of Basic Education in South Africa has already introduced child immunisation cards which are mandatory to enroll into the first grade and are in the process of introducing mandatory Covid vaccination for the children to be admitted to public school system as stated in the article.
ReplyDeleteLastly, I would like to address the moral dilemma about limitation of individual rights. It is true that making a law mandatory causes limitation in person's discission making, but in terms of global events like the Covid pandemic the person's opinion should be secondary and an utilitarian mindset should take place to some extent. To further illustrate, I would like to compare the mandatory laws during covid-19 pandemic to the ones during a war. In a war people are compelled to fight with their lives on the line for the safety of their country, to defend the people, the economy and the existence of a given country. In the same way I would encourage people to fight against the virus to protect their country and the world, but without having to put their lives on the line and just having to be vaccinated. Again, I do agree that in some scenarios the vaccine causes harm. In those cases people are ought to be excluded from mandatory vaccination.