Some Claims in Canada's Vaccine Debate Are About Facts. Others Are About Ethics.
Writing in The Conversation Canada, the authors sort the claims made at the Allison inquiry and in the reporting around it into two piles: claims about facts — including facts left out — and claims that are ethical in nature. The inquiry was MP Dean Allison's: a four-day, independent, unsanctioned event held in early September that invited Canadians to share personal experiences of injuries from COVID-19 vaccines.
The Conversation Canada also notes a Toronto Sun opinion piece that claimed COVID-19 vaccine programs “killed thousands of Canadians,” repeated a call for an immediate stop to COVID-19 mRNA vaccinations, and called for resignations, arrests and a full public inquiry by the prime minister.
Ethical claims are a matter of values, which people or groups may prioritize differently — an argument of a different kind from a dispute over what the facts are.
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Two people can look at the same vaccine policy and rank their values differently: some prefer the option that preserves personal autonomy above all else, others the one that prioritizes fairness and minimizes deaths or health disparities.
But the autonomy-only frame has a blind spot: getting vaccinated carries some risk to the person vaccinated, since no medical intervention is entirely risk-free, and choosing to forgo vaccination imposes risks on others.
Which is why the ethicists' point about reciprocity bites: if imposing risks on others can justify limits on your freedom, then refusing a vaccine is not a purely private choice. The verb is “can” ...