Some Dude Suggests Pro-Choicers Could Team Up With Anti-Vaxxers Because Of Course He Did

That’s some bullshit for you.

Republicans are attacking abortion rights across the country while resisting even the most basic attempts at slowing the spread of COVID-19. However, Fordham Law professor Jed Shugerman thinks we can reach common ground with the quirky death cult party.

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 He tweeted this week:  "A right to bodily autonomy underlies the left's case for reproductive rights & the right's case against vaccine mandates. I don't agree with all the arguments, but I think we'd be better off if both left & right could agree to respect the other side's claims to bodily autonomy."

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Shugerman — who’s not someone who’ll ever become pregnant — fundamentally misunderstands the rightwing opposition to abortion. If we learn anything from this pandemic (and there’s little evidence we will) it should be that the conservative “pro-life” position is a big fraud. These assholes won’t wear a mask in a grocery store to save lives. They won’t get vaccinated to save lives. Their anti-abortion stance is about power and control. That’s it.

Conservatives aren’t embracing “bodily autonomy.” Their opposition to vaccine mandates/mask mandates is rooted in their Ayn Rand disregard for society and the well being of others. There is no actual relation to abortion rights. Most vaccine mandates have reasonable exceptions unlike the fugitive uterus laws. 

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Shugerman engages in a false equivalency anyway: Abortion is not a public health issue. Terminating a pregnancy doesn’t prevent other people from getting pregnant or push our hospital system to the point of collapse. Abortions aren’t contagious. Anti-choice conservatives love to go on about the “innocent” children abortions supposedly kill but their anti-vax/anti-mask position endangers countless children outside the womb and they don’t seem to care.

After being ratioed all to be damned, Shugerman argued:  

But: Isn't it a good strategy if we supporters of Roe v. Wade find common ground w/ conservatives, esp. when they have a 6-3 margin? If conservatives are embracing bodily autonomy on mandates, build a bridge, don't burn it down.

The word of the day here is “appeasement,” which hardly boasts a distinguished history. It’s adorable that Shugerman thinks we could find any common ground with conservatives. They don’t want everything. They want it all . How many decades of failed triangulation will it take before we accept this? But guys like Shugerman always want to “compromise.” They’ll negotiate your spaghetti with marina sauce into egg noodles and ketchup .

We’ve established certain reasonable limits on bodily autonomy: You can smoke in your own home but not inside public places. Yes, preventing someone from smoking is different from asking someone to take a vaccine or wear a mask (though we do expect people to wear shoes in public). However, it’s insulting to compare the burden of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term with getting vaccinated. The COVID-19 vaccine is free, and I don’t see conservatives offering universal health insurance or even government subsidized pre-natal care. It also took a combined 90 minutes of my time for three shots. Nine months is significantly longer.

The medically confirmed, non-crackpot side effects are mild. Even perfectly normal, healthy pregnancies can prove debilitating. There’s swollen ankles and nausea. As a friend said, “They call it morning sickness to let you know it’s gonna happen every morning for a while.” Abortion is a reasonable treatment for an unwanted, progressive medical condition that makes you ill. That’s probably the common theme anyway: Anti-choicers and anti-vaxxers want us to get sick and stay that way — maybe even die! — all for freedom and Jesus or whatever it is they pretend to believe. I don’t even care. They can go fuck themselves. We’re not compromising with them.

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