Julie Ponesse

The sinking ship of the mandate enthusiasts took on more water last month with the publication of a powerhouse paper by some of the world’s top bioethicists (from Oxford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Toronto).

… This paper is the evidential manna-from-heaven that those fighting the mandates have been praying for. Thank goodness it came along when it did to undercut the intoxicating public health message that the mRNA vaccines are the only way to save the human race from COVID-19.

But, with all its strengths, I worry that the paper misses the larger point about why vaccine mandates are wrong. It’s still playing at the collectivist cost-benefit game, a morally flawed one with rules that normatively privilege the group over the individual and assign no absolute value to the right of self-governance.

Playing skillfully at the collectivist’s game is just another form of defeat.