Roe v Wade

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

On 26/06/2022 at 06:38, horsefly said:

You are no doubt right that some people are wont to use language to obfuscate rather than illuminate, and the abortion debate is prone to such practice. However, that would be to misunderstand Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument. She specifically makes a point of accepting the assumption that the foetus is human and has a "right to life". The use of the term "foetus" here is not to dehumanise but simply to identify a human being that is located within a mother's womb and dependent upon a woman for the maintenance of life.

Her point is that one individual's right to life does not confer upon it the right to demand of another individual that she provides it with the use of her body to sustain it. Society already recognises that the right to life is not unconditional; for example, you have a right to kill someone in self defence if that is necessitated in resisting an unlawful attack. The point of her "violinist thought experiment" is to illustrate her claim that the right to life of a foetus is likewise conditional and does not confer upon the woman carrying it an obligation to carry it to term. In the case of the violinist in her thought experiment, it would no doubt be morally commendable of you to allow the individual to make use of your kidney until he was able to survive independently, however, there is no moral obligation for you to do so, and nothing reprehensible in you refusing to allow that to happen. 

In the vast majority of pregnancies talk of "moral obligation" is entirely irrelevant because the woman concerned views her situation with joy. However, it is undeniable that there are very many cases where the very opposite is the case. For a society to force a woman against her will to continue a pregnancy in such circumstances is morally egregious. It effectively declares society in general as sovereign over the right of each individual woman to the integrity of her own particular body. I see no possible grounds for society to believe that it has a moral right to control the body of each individual woman irrespective of her wishes. To do so reduces women to the status of vessels rather than autonomous individuals.

 

Except when it came to Covid vaccines and you were pissing all over anyone who was an anti-vaxxer. It is hypocritical to claim women have the moral right to control their own body while slamming anti-vaxxers for expressing the moral right to refuse the Covid vaccine. 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

9 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

How about enforced gender reassignment for any man who thinks he knows better than a woman about abortion. Seems only right and proper. 😉

 

I think you just opened a can of worms there.....

[Surfer 1,547]

5 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Except when it came to Covid vaccines and you were pissing all over anyone who was an anti-vaxxer. It is hypocritical to claim women have the moral right to control their own body while slamming anti-vaxxers for expressing the moral right to refuse the Covid vaccine. 

Last time I checked pregnancy was not a highly contagious disease though.... anti-vaccers were free to stay at home, but being out and about without a mask or any care for other's risk was really dangerous behavior. 

[horsefly 4,310]

12 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Except when it came to Covid vaccines and you were pissing all over anyone who was an anti-vaxxer. It is hypocritical to claim women have the moral right to control their own body while slamming anti-vaxxers for expressing the moral right to refuse the Covid vaccine. 

Oh dear! As ever you are incapable of identifying the relevant issues. When a woman undergoes an abortion, the effects on her body are isolated to her body alone. When an anti-vaxxer refuses to participate in a national healthcare programme to stop mass deaths from a pandemic they directly cause an increase in the number of people killed or physically harmed by the disease. I would have thought even you could have worked that one out, apparently not.

And for the record, point out where I said that anti-vaxxers should be forced to have the vaccine. I never did, so perhaps you should qualify your eloquent claim that I was, "pissing all over anyone who was an anti-vaxxer". 

Seems you have forgotten to answer my question about why you have suddenly become a "woke" convert to the belief that there is such a thing as "structural racism". I'm simply fascinated to know what caused your conversion; did you read a book at last? Never too late to educate yourself, well done!

Edited June 29, 2022 by horsefly

[benchwarmer 625]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

 When an anti-vaxxer refuses to participate in a national healthcare programme to stop mass deaths from a pandemic they directly cause an increase in the number of people killed or physically harmed by the disease.

 

That's what we were led to believe, but the reality is that vaccination protects no one except those who receive it.  Why?  Because although they're immune they can still carry it unknowingly and infect others.  This is well illustrated by numerous examples of European colonialists with natural immunity to diseases such as smallpox, who came into contact with indigenous peoples who had no immunity and the death rate was horrendous.  It's ironic that smallpox is now regarded as a disease of the 'third world' when it originated here in Europe.

PS. Sarcasm isn't big or clever. Cut it out.

Edited June 29, 2022 by benchwarmer

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

Oh dear! As ever you are incapable of identifying the relevant issues. When a woman undergoes an abortion, the effects on her body are isolated to her body alone.

One might argue that it has a pretty big affect on at least one other body too. Surely the very heart of this is whether there is indeed just one body?

[Yellow Fever 3,825]

11 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

I think you just opened a can of worms there.....

Yes - Really just trying to show how us 'men' would like somebody else telling us what we can / can't do with our own bodies   

[horsefly 4,310]

2 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

That's what we were led to believe, but the reality is that vaccination protects no one except those who receive it.  Why?  Because although they're immune they can still carry it unknowingly and infect others.  This is well illustrated by numerous examples of European colonialists with natural immunity to diseases such as smallpox, who came into contact with indigenous peoples who had no immunity and the death rate was horrendous.  It's ironic that smallpox is now regarded as a disease of the 'third world' when it originated here in Europe.

PS. Sarcasm isn't big or clever. Cut it out.

"but the reality is that vaccination protects no one except those who receive it". Epidemiological nonsense! Vaccination programmes reduce the number of people with the disease, and that in turn reduces the number of people spreading the disease. Outbreaks of diseases like German Measles occur precisely when there is a significant drop in vaccinations. I guess you didn't follow the government roll out of Covid vaccines close enough to read the reports that demonstrated that those people vaccinated were less likely to spread the disease (Here's one such example https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccinated-people-are-less-likely-spread-covid-new-research-finds-n1280583)

As for your PS;  just who made you the arbiter of of rhetorical style on this site?  

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by horsefly

[benchwarmer 625]

1 hour ago, horsefly said:

"but the reality is that vaccination protects no one except those who receive it". Epidemiological nonsense! Vaccination programmes reduce the number of people with the disease, and that in turn reduces the number of people spreading the disease. Outbreaks of diseases like German Measles occur precisely when there is a significant drop in vaccinations. I guess you didn't follow the government roll out of Covid vaccines close enough to read the reports that demonstrated that those people vaccinated were less likely to spread the disease (Here's one such example https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccinated-people-are-less-likely-spread-covid-new-research-finds-n1280583)

As for your PS;  just who made you the arbiter of of rhetorical style on this site?  

 

Vaccination reduces the number of people with symptoms of the disease.  The study shown above only covers 'cases' ie. vaccinated people who tested positive for covid, not those who did not.  There's no way of knowing how many vaccinated people who are asymptomatic have spread the disease, but history tells us that it is a factor which ought not to be dismissed in a truly objective study.

And there are too many other variables affecting the rate of spread - notably the increasing number of people who developed natural immunity as the pandemic progressed without realising that they had been in contact with the virus - to conclude that vaccination was the sole or even the main reason for reduced infection rates.  We simply don't know.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by benchwarmer

[horsefly 4,310]

1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

One might argue that it has a pretty big affect on at least one other body too. Surely the very heart of this is whether there is indeed just one body?

Let's agree for the sake of argument that the foetus is being harmed in the act of abortion, that there are indeed two morally significant beings at play in the issue. Then I refer you back to the Judith Jarvis Thomson article. The point of her thought experiment was to demonstrate that no one has a right to oblige another individual to let them make use of their organs to ensure their own survival. The case of knowingly spreading fatal infectious diseases is significantly different. For example, we already know of cases where an individual has been imprisoned for knowingly engaging in transmission of HIV. I am not, of course, suggesting that anti-vaxxers are identical with such criminals, my point is merely to show that there is a significant difference in the two kinds of cases. Without getting too distracted by the case of anti-vaxxers, the germane issues will include facts about the nature of the disease; for example, is transmission of the disease very likely, and does it approach a significant risk of fatality? If such conditions are met the case for restrictions on behaviour (including various forms of enforcement) become ethically defensible, as in the case of notifiable diseases. The strength of Jarvis Thomson's article derives from the fact that she "accepts" the argument of those that claim a foetus has a right to life, but demonstrates that such an acceptance does not imply or morally justify forcing a mother to bring that foetus to term. A woman on her way to an abortion clinic poses no threat to anyone outside the limits of her own body; a women with Ebola wandering around town threatens many. The case of anti-vaxxers is not the same as an Ebola carrier, but they are both on the spectrum of communicable diseases that concerns questions regarding justifiable government intervention. Just for the record I would not have supported the enforcement of vaccines on the anti-vaxxers but do think they were morally culpable in various ways (spreading lies for example).

[horsefly 4,310]

5 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

Vaccination reduces the number of people with symptoms of the disease.  The study shown above only covers 'cases' ie. vaccinated people who tested positive for covid, not those who did not.  There's no way of knowing how many vaccinated people who are asymptomatic have spread the disease, but history tells us that it is a factor which ought not to be dismissed in a truly objective study.

And there are too many other variables affecting the rate of spread - notably the increasing number of people who developed natural immunity as the pandemic progressed without realising that they had been in contact with the virus - to conclude that vaccination was the sole or even the main reason for reduced infection rates.  We simply don't know.

 

Read it again (and several others that show the same results). Those who HAD the vaccine were PROVEN to be less likely to transmit the disease. Are you really suggesting we should give up vaccine programmes like the one against German measles? We've seen what happens when the numbers of those vaccinated falls below a certain level, many more children die. I thought you were pro-life, especially in the case of the young.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

43 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

Vaccination reduces the number of people with symptoms of the disease.  The study shown above only covers 'cases' ie. vaccinated people who tested positive for covid, not those who did not.  There's no way of knowing how many vaccinated people who are asymptomatic have spread the disease, but history tells us that it is a factor which ought not to be dismissed in a truly objective study.

And there are too many other variables affecting the rate of spread - notably the increasing number of people who developed natural immunity as the pandemic progressed without realising that they had been in contact with the virus - to conclude that vaccination was the sole or even the main reason for reduced infection rates.  We simply don't know.

 

Did you have the vaccine?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

One might argue that it has a pretty big affect on at least one other body too. Surely the very heart of this is whether there is indeed just one body?

Isn't that why there is a restriction on the number of weeks? General opinion seems to be the first trimester of 12-13 weeks, the embryo/fetus shows little of what we would call life. Of course  institutions such as the Catholic church used to believe that even a man's sperm was life and forbid contraception.

[TheRock 171]

Freedom of choice is the cornerstone of a free speech and living in a free society, whether it be practice of religion, having relationships, having sex, having gender reassignment surgery, having abortions, having (or not having) vaccinations, wearing kippahs/turbans/hijabs/niqabs, vegan/veggie dieting, wearing remembrance poppies / BLM / pride clothing etc..

 

The problem with subject of abortion is that, like same sex relationships, for so many years it has been taught in religious literature that it is evil, and thus has always been a devisive and taboo subject for many. Luckily in the UK we seem to have solved the issue years ago by making it legal to those who want it, with a sensible contraception mechanism to try and mitigate the need for them, unlike the Americans who still seem to be totally polarised on it.

Edited June 29, 2022 by TheRock

[TheGunnShow 5,995]

27 minutes ago, TheRock said:

Freedom of choice is the cornerstone of a free speech and living in a free society, whether it be practice of religion, having relationships, having sex, having gender reassignment surgery, having abortions, having (or not having) vaccinations, wearing kippahs/turbans/hijabs/niqabs, vegan/veggie dieting, wearing remembrance poppies / BLM / pride clothing etc..

 

The problem with subject of abortion is that, like same sex relationships, for so many years it has been taught in religious literature that it is evil, and thus has always been a devisive and taboo subject for many. Luckily in the UK we seem to have solved the issue years ago by making it legal to those who want it, with a sensible contraception mechanism to try and mitigate the need for them, unlike the Americans who still seem to be totally polarised on it.

Largely agree, but we still have a sex education problem in the UK relative to other countries, in other words, not enough of it. We still sweep it under the carpet (presumably shag pile) and leave youngsters a bit ill-informed.

The USA is even worse. Abstinence-based sex education has been demonstrated so often to be useless in terms of preventing teenage pregnancy I find it bewildering that some backwards areas still encourage it. Teenagers are bound to shag.  Then there's the defunding of Planned Parenthood, which is one of the most brilliant examples of a lack of joined-up thinking I'll ever see. Why defund an institution that proffers birth control as a key part of its remit?

Bonkers.

[benchwarmer 625]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

Did you have the vaccine?

Long story.  I had covid - neither mild nor severe but somewhere in between - in Jan/Feb 2020 (yes that's right, before it was 'officially' here).  When vaccination started I waited for a letter.  And waited.  And waited.  The surgery website told people not to contact them about vaccination letters, so I tried booking online.  Three attempts produced Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft as the nearest, but I live in Norwich and rely on public transport - and we were in lockdown.  I then found that declining these offers had been recorded as 'missed appointments'.

All this gave me time to think.  If I hadn't had the virus I'd probably have been vaccinated, but come July and still no letter it began to sink in that the virus had given me natural immunity.  As it became clear that more than one dose was needed and then boosters, and AstraZeneca was withdrawn without explanation, I concluded that vaccination was not only unnecessary but potentially harmful since no trials had been carried out to identify or eliminate risk factors from multiple doses.

Around that time a young man of my acquaintance in his early 30s, fit and well, who had to be vaccinated for work-related reasons, developed severe shingles after the second dose causing extreme pain; he was off work for over two months, and eleven months on still has pain in his arm which might be permanent.  Shingles is rare in fit young people, but other cases of this kind are now starting to emerge.

I bet you wish you hadn't asked . . .

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by benchwarmer

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

30 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

Long story.  I had covid - neither mild nor severe but somewhere in between - in Jan/Feb 2020 (yes that's right, before it was 'officially' here).  When vaccination started I waited for a letter.  And waited.  And waited.  The surgery website told people not to contact them about vaccination letters, so I tried booking online.  Three attempts produced Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft as the nearest, but I live in Norwich and rely on public transport - and we were in lockdown.  I then found that declining these offers had been recorded as 'missed appointments'.

All this gave me time to think.  If I hadn't had the virus I'd probably have been vaccinated, but come July and still no letter it began to sink in that the virus had given me natural immunity.  As it became clear that more than one dose was needed and then boosters, and AstraZeneca was withdrawn without explanation, I concluded that vaccination was not only unnecessary but potentially harmful since no trials had been carried out to identify or eliminate risk factors from multiple doses.

Around that time a young man of my acquaintance in his early 30s, fit and well, who had to be vaccinated for work-related reasons, developed severe shingles after the second dose causing extreme pain; he was off work for over two months, and eleven months on still has pain in his arm which might be permanent.  Shingles is rare in fit young people, but other cases of this kind are now starting to emerge.

I bet you wish you hadn't asked . . .

 

No, not all. The vaccine was the one issue that could in fact have caused great harm. And for all we know, it may well have done. The same as anything we cannot be sure about, we have to take things on trust. I have had three jabs, Mrs KG four. At the moment, especially as we have not had covid, we are not likely to have anymore, unless a new and dangerous variant arrives.

[TheRock 171]

1 hour ago, TheGunnShow said:

Largely agree, but we still have a sex education problem in the UK relative to other countries, in other words, not enough of it. We still sweep it under the carpet (presumably shag pile) and leave youngsters a bit ill-informed.

The USA is even worse. Abstinence-based sex education has been demonstrated so often to be useless in terms of preventing teenage pregnancy I find it bewildering that some backwards areas still encourage it. Teenagers are bound to shag.  Then there's the defunding of Planned Parenthood, which is one of the most brilliant examples of a lack of joined-up thinking I'll ever see. Why defund an institution that proffers birth control as a key part of its remit?

Bonkers.

 

Not sure how the curriculum is anymore. I left school 10 years ago and we were taught absolutely nothing about abortion, same sex relationships, abusive relationships etc., only how to put a c0nd0m onto a banana...! A group of students in my year group actually got declined by the Head of Year when they asked to do an assembly talk about what was then the upcoming Marriage Equality bill , which later was passed in 2013 by the Coalition Government.

They also taught us nothing about applying for a mortgage, financial planning and saving, yet they taught us how to sign on for the dole...

Finally my one problem with the education system at the time was (not sure if this is still the case) learning skilled trades such as Bricklaying, Mechanics, Carpentry etc. was discouraged at GCSE level, and sneered at by the schools, who were incentivised to send as many kids as possible to University by the Government. Now a decade later we have a critical shortage of all trades, especially Bricklayers, Plumbers, etc...

 

I agree there seems to be a lot omitted fom the education system still.

Edited June 29, 2022 by TheRock

[TheGunnShow 5,995]

38 minutes ago, TheRock said:

 

Not sure how the curriculum is anymore. I left school 10 years ago and we were taught absolutely nothing about abortion, same sex relationships, abusive relationships etc., only how to put a c0nd0m onto a banana...! A group of students in my year group actually got declined by the Head of Year when they asked to do an assembly talk about what was then the upcoming Marriage Equality bill , which later was passed in 2013 by the Coalition Government.

They also taught us nothing about applying for a mortgage, financial planning and saving, yet they taught us how to sign on for the dole...

Finally my one problem with the education system at the time was (not sure if this is still the case) learning skilled trades such as Bricklaying, Mechanics, Carpentry etc. was discouraged at GCSE level, and sneered at by the schools, who were incentivised to send as many kids as possible to University by the Government. Now a decade later we have a critical shortage of all trades, especially Bricklayers, Plumbers, etc...

 

I agree there seems to be a lot omitted fom the education system still.

Certainly in Europe, the link between better sex education and lower teenage pregnancies is very well established, and a link between better sex education and lower abortion rates is also somewhat prevalent. The Dutch in particular have very liberal attitudes to sex education, but not many abortions at all.

[Barbe bleu 832]

5 hours ago, horsefly said:

Let's agree for the sake of argument that the foetus is being harmed in the act of abortion, that there are indeed two morally significant beings at play in the issue. Then I refer you back to the Judith Jarvis Thomson article. 

Fair enough. For the record I'm not giving my opinion, I think its too difficult (for me) and too emotive (to many)   for me to believe it is worth doing so here, and thats before we begin to consider that any of our opinions here would possibly inform policy anywhere.

I read the violin case and thank you for pointing to it. I'm  not sure it was intended to be a defence of abortion in total, more a defence of abortion in cases of rape- and the problem inherent in  analogy is that anyone can write an alternative that inclines the audience to the opposite view.

But even if it doesn't provide absolute answers to problem that perhaps can never be answered in such terms it does get you thinking.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,592]

16 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

Long story.  I had covid - neither mild nor severe but somewhere in between - in Jan/Feb 2020 (yes that's right, before it was 'officially' here).  When vaccination started I waited for a letter.  And waited.  And waited.  The surgery website told people not to contact them about vaccination letters, so I tried booking online.  Three attempts produced Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft as the nearest, but I live in Norwich and rely on public transport - and we were in lockdown.  I then found that declining these offers had been recorded as 'missed appointments'.

All this gave me time to think.  If I hadn't had the virus I'd probably have been vaccinated, but come July and still no letter it began to sink in that the virus had given me natural immunity.  As it became clear that more than one dose was needed and then boosters, and AstraZeneca was withdrawn without explanation, I concluded that vaccination was not only unnecessary but potentially harmful since no trials had been carried out to identify or eliminate risk factors from multiple doses.

Around that time a young man of my acquaintance in his early 30s, fit and well, who had to be vaccinated for work-related reasons, developed severe shingles after the second dose causing extreme pain; he was off work for over two months, and eleven months on still has pain in his arm which might be permanent.  Shingles is rare in fit young people, but other cases of this kind are now starting to emerge.

I bet you wish you hadn't asked . . .

 

Dodgy conclusions. You're one person. Even unvaccinated, the odds of dying from COVID were very low, but given the infectiousness, without vaccines the death toll would have been far greater.

Also, vaccines do reduce infectiousness; the idea that they don't is an anti Vax myth.

Incidentally, I'm triple vaxxed with AZ, Pfizer, then Moderna with trivial effects, so if we're going to reduce epidemiology to personal experiences then you can take that as proof that all the vaccines are perfectly safe.

Plenty of dead unvacxxed from this pandemic; far more proportionally than vaccinated.

Edited June 30, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Surfer 1,547]

9 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Isn't that why there is a restriction on the number of weeks? General opinion seems to be the first trimester of 12-13 weeks, the embryo/fetus shows little of what we would call life. Of course  institutions such as the Catholic church used to believe that even a man's sperm was life and forbid contraception.

Many religions, including many Christian denominations, believe (or at least they historically did) that life starts with "the quickening", our modern scientific test of "viability" seeming to match up to that quite well.

The Evangelical churches here in the US have only had this visceral rejection of abortion since the 1960's, i.e. shortly after they lost the civil rights struggle and had to dismantle their "separate but equal", whites and blacks "living apart" (Dutch: "apart heid') society. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Surfer

[horsefly 4,310]

5 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Fair enough. For the record I'm not giving my opinion, I think its too difficult (for me) and too emotive (to many)   for me to believe it is worth doing so here, and thats before we begin to consider that any of our opinions here would possibly inform policy anywhere.

I read the violin case and thank you for pointing to it. I'm  not sure it was intended to be a defence of abortion in total, more a defence of abortion in cases of rape- and the problem inherent in  analogy is that anyone can write an alternative that inclines the audience to the opposite view.

But even if it doesn't provide absolute answers to problem that perhaps can never be answered in such terms it does get you thinking.

Thanks! I actually agree that the issues are extremely emotional, and it is instructive to note that no one has ever "solved" this issue despite centuries of debate. I referred to the Judith Jarvis Thomson article because I think it makes the most clear and coherent case for recognising that ultimately there is not a convincing justification for interfering with the right of a woman to choose what happens to her own body.

[benchwarmer 625]

15 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Dodgy conclusions. You're one person.

 

I was only speaking for myself.  Everyone needs to make their own decision.  Mine was based on having natural immunity from covid, which has been dismissed by the vax-worshippers (including some so-called experts) for no good reason. 

By the same token you cannot assume that because you're OK after three jabs (so far as you know) it 'proves' that the vaccines are perfectly safe.  Personally I believe that since we've all been guinea pigs in a gigantic experiment, we at least have a right to know why AstraZeneca - that so-called great British world-leading vaccine - was withdrawn last September. 

Edited June 30, 2022 by benchwarmer

[horsefly 4,310]

2 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

I was only speaking for myself.  Everyone needs to make their own decision.  Mine was based on having natural immunity from covid, which was dismissed by the vax-worshippers (including some so-called experts) for no good reason. 

By the same token you cannot assume that because you're OK after three jabs (so far as you know) it 'proves' that the vaccines are perfectly safe.  Personally I believe that since we've all been guinea pigs in a gigantic experiment, we at least have a right to know why AstraZeneca - that so-called great British world-leading vaccine - was withdrawn last September. 

No vaccines can be described as 100% safe for a multitude of reasons (allergic reactions, underlying conditions etc, etc). A vaccination programme is justified by proving that significantly more people will be harmed or die from a disease than is posed by any "threat" from the vaccine. Would you propose natural immunity for german measles, polio, smallpox or tetanus? If so, you would be condemning millions of people to unnecessary deaths. As LYB pointed out, the unvaccinated disproportionately represented those killed by Covid. Healthy scepticism is indeed warranted in most areas of life, but to suggest that the scientists and medical staff involved in developing and instituting the Covid-19 vaccine rollout were treating us as guinea pigs in a gigantic experiment is somewhat disrespectful and little more than conspiracy theory nonsense.

 

[TheGunnShow 5,995]

I had a strange reaction to the booster - the best way of describing it was that it seemed to strip away my resistance to the cold during exercise. Ended up in A&E on the back of it - was cycling a few miles to referee a football match but my hands got progressively colder and colder despite them being in a set of good Roosters gloves (designed for sailing, I use them for running in the cold). Ended up getting dizzy off a gentle cycle - and even though I'd been wrapped up in a van for 40 minutes before going there (a passer-by saw me and helped me out) and had been in A&E for some time, my body temperature was apparently still below normal when they tested me.

Still, I'd rather that than run the risk of the sheer litany of side-effects long Covid has. A couple of my pals have had that, and it's grim.

[benchwarmer 625]

5 hours ago, horsefly said:

 Healthy scepticism is indeed warranted in most areas of life, but to suggest that the scientists and medical staff involved in developing and instituting the Covid-19 vaccine rollout were treating us as guinea pigs in a gigantic experiment is somewhat disrespectful and little more than conspiracy theory nonsense.

 

I'm not suggesting that a gigantic experiment was deliberately planned, but once you factor in political pressure that's effectively what it was.

Edited June 30, 2022 by benchwarmer

[horsefly 4,310]

14 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

I'm not suggesting that a gigantic experiment was deliberately planned, but once you factor in political pressure that was effectively what it was.

Or the alternative: it was effectively the introduction of a vaccine programme that has saved millions of lives.

I'm still curious to know whether you think it was wrong to introduce vaccine programmes for german measles, polio, tetanus, and smallpox.

Edited June 30, 2022 by horsefly

[benchwarmer 625]

20 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Or the alternative: it was effectively the introduction of a vaccine programme that has saved millions of lives.

I'm still curious to know whether you think it was wrong to introduce vaccine programmes for german measles, polio, tetanus, and smallpox.

No of course not.  All these are diseases which require a single course of vaccination to provide lifelong protection, although I question whether tetanus, which is spread by microbes in the soil, is necessary for those not involved in agricultural work or gardening.  But proper trials are vital.  I'm old enough to remember when the early polio vaccines actually gave people polio, in the 1950s.

And I do in general have a problem with vaccinations that are supposed to be repeated at least annually, such as flu, or more often than that as in the case of covid.  I stopped the flu vaccine about 15 years ago because it made me feel so lousy on occasions that I might as well have had the real thing.  Since then I've had flu once, in 2011.  I'm nearly 71 btw.

Edited June 30, 2022 by benchwarmer

[horsefly 4,310]

46 minutes ago, benchwarmer said:

No of course not.  All these are diseases which require a single course of vaccination to provide lifelong protection, although I question whether tetanus, which is spread by microbes in the soil, is necessary for those not involved in agricultural work or gardening.  But proper trials are vital.  I'm old enough to remember when the early polio vaccines actually gave people polio, in the 1950s.

And I do in general have a problem with vaccinations that are supposed to be repeated at least annually, such as flu, or more often than that as in the case of covid.  I stopped the flu vaccine about 15 years ago because it made me feel so lousy on occasions that I might as well have had the real thing.  Since then I've had flu once, in 2011.  I'm nearly 71 btw.

Glad to see that you don't have a problem with vaccines per se, but that makes me wonder why you object to vaccines that require updating (such as the flu jab). It's the disease that dictates such requirements.

Quite happy for you to make your individual choice re flu jabs etc, but the evidence is clear that the jab saves many lives. As for tetanus, it is very much on the increase in this country at the moment and causing serious concern (my partner works in the NHS). 

Of course proper trials are vital. I took part in one for the Covid vaccine myself. I see no evidence to contradict the claim that the Covid vaccine roll-out has saved huge numbers of lives across the world.