I’ve been feeling a tug to write a new post for a while, mainly because I have a TON of new subscribers (Yay! Welcome!) I’ve been working on writing something else that will hopefully get published on a national website, and I didn’t want to duplicate that effort here because it might blow my cover, lol.
But the topic of the day/week is the recent SCOTUS rulings on abortion. I am NOT going to get out of my lane here as an epidemiologist. Rather, I’m going to call on the rest of academia to stay in their lanes as well, because some of their response is frankly hypocritical.
First, the really sad aspect of the vast majority of academia’s response to these rulings is that it is painfully obvious that these people either don’t know, or don’t care, how this country is actually set up. I’m seeing a lot of academics tweeting stuff like “fall of democracy”. This isn’t a democracy and never was. It is a constitutional republic. Moreover, the Constitution set up 3 equal and separate branches of government. If you are going to complain about the SCOTUS decisions, make sure you understand them and their implications first. (Stay in your lane unless you have a degree in constitutional law.)
Second, it is disheartening that universities and professional societies are putting out statements decrying the decision. It is one thing to show support to people who want “reproductive freedom” (that phrase is a misnomer because it implies reproduction, aka making babies, the better phrase should be “sexual freedom”, but I digress). But the tone of some of these statements assumes that EVERYONE at the university and/or society feels the same way. Where is your tolerance? Believe it or not, there are Christians and other pro-life individuals in your institutions.
Third… these people are the same ones that said “shut up and take the vaccine” or “just wear the stupid mask”. These are the same people that persecuted those of us that read the actual literature on masks, vaccine effectiveness, lockdown effectiveness, etc. And now you’re saying “my body my choice”? But coercing people to take an ineffective vaccine that might violate their religious and/or philosophical views - that’s okay?
Stay in your lane. Maybe adopt some of the practices of tolerance that you preach instead.
Well-stated, and exactly what I've been thinking.
Substack's been a little weird lately so hence the trial comment below. Hopefully tech glitches are fixed.
Anyway, the "my body my choice (except in the case of vax)" mindset is something that often comes to mind lately, so glad to see you put something in your post. Such a hypocritical mindset that most of the guilty seem oblivious to.
Also, I'm not sure another comment made today got into substack, so I'll mention it here. I got a notification about your recommendation of Kathryn Huwig's Beyond the Data substack, so I checked it out. Lots of good stuff, so wanted to say thank you for making that recommendation.