Last weekend, a sizable crowd gathered outside the State Capitol for what was deemed the Medical Freedom Rally. Protestors voiced opposition to mandates for COVID-19 vaccinations and masks.
Since the Food and Drug Administration’s Aug. 23 approval of the Pfizer vaccine, employers, government bodies, hospitality establishments and entertainment venues have issued mandates.
Here, closer to home, local educators, parents and students have been exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech voicing opposition or support for COVID mitigation strategies in our schools. The recipients of that speech have been school board members prior to votes on whether to mask up for the school year that began last week. At the time of this writing, Sartell-St. Stephen and St. Cloud school districts both approved mask requirements for now.
In our highly politicized environment, words like freedom and choice have been thrown around with reckless abandon.
The preamble of the U.S. Constitution states our primary purpose, among other things, is to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The pandemic certainly has tested that, but the government has a right to enact laws to protect the health and safety of the public. That is the quintessential role of the government.
From the federal government down through our local school boards, that notion of protecting people is paramount. St. Cloud School District’s mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture for learning. Sartell-St. Stephen School District has a “whole child focus” that states each child deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged.
To that end, taking measures to protect others – whether temporary or permanent – are certainly within the bounds of government at all levels.
Wearing a mask, just like wearing seat belts or requiring shoes and a shirt in a store, does not violate rights. It’s this care for the health and safety of others that allows me to stand in line at a convenience store and not be bothered by a sweaty, shirtless, mangy-footed slob with a Lucky Strike dangling from his dry lips.
Unfortunately, when it comes to outcries about stifled freedom and choice, we do not view these ideals as universal rights. Instead, we attempt to wield their rhetorical power when it is convenient for what we want to do or don’t want to do.
The views of those who cannot be encouraged or bribed into getting a COVID vaccine because they stand for medical freedom will be put to the test in October when the Supreme Court of the United States hears Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. I would imagine many of those Facebook filters that proclaim “I stand for medical freedom” will disappear because the reality is many of these bumper-sticker advocates only stand for what suits them and not true medical freedom. We can’t make people get a vaccination, but we can force a woman to stay pregnant regardless of what she and her medical team and support network feel is in her best interests? I had to shake my head at the Medical Freedom Rally protestors with the “my body, my choice” placards. Hold on to those signs. We’ll need them again soon.
The 100-year anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in Minnesota was celebrated Aug. 26. This is a true historic milestone regarding freedom and choice that occurred 145 years after the United States became a country.
Yet we think our freedom is stifled because we temporarily have to wear a mask to school?
In 2001, the U.S. State Department released a report on the Taliban’s war against women, detailing accounts of medical care being denied, girls over the age of eight being banned from an education and women being beaten in public for exposing their ankles. This regime is now back in charge.
If you really want to understand loss of freedom and choice, send your bold, brave and brilliant daughters over to Afghanistan. You’ll quickly realize how easy we have it.
