‘My body, my choice’ is a road that goes both ways

The phrase, ‘my body, my choice’ has been tossed around frequently this past year. Vaccinations were made available, leading to the subsequent release of the Restrictions Exemption Program along with vaccine mandates amongst businesses. This culminated in people refusing to get the vaccine, leading them to cite that since it was their body, it was their choice. However, that phrase was tossed around before COVID in regard to the conversation of abortion. With two sides of  pro-life or pro-choice, the side of pro-choice has used the ‘my body, my choice’ or ‘their body, their choice’ in this instance.

Now we’re not a fan of generalizing here. There are always two sides to every coin, and multiple different beliefs and cultures within a large group of individuals — however, we’ve come to realize there are a large number of the people currently protesting COVID mandates. Whether it be down at Coutts, out in Toronto or Ottawa or joining many different convoys in Alberta, most are also tossing that phrase around. It is their body, and it is their choice on whether or not they decide to get vaccinated — so why is it that they don’t support a woman’s choice to get an abortion or not?

Now we recognize they aren’t the same thing. One is a vaccination, the other is the abortion of a fetus, but when you associate yourself with the concept of being able to choose what goes in your body; then why can’t a woman choose what happens to theirs?

Just like receiving the vaccination, there are many complications that could come with pregnancy. In fact, high-risk pregnancies occur in about six to eight per cent of all pregnancies. That’s six to eight out of 100. So, what are the stats for serious adverse effects following a COVID vaccination? Well, some can be as rare as 0.0005 — or five in one million — per cent or as common as 0.001 per cent. Not very high stats are they?

There’s also the fact women can choose abortion for a variety of reasons — shouldn’t they be allowed to make that choice for what’s best for them and their body without having to explain themselves? If you’re okay with protesting against vaccination because you feel that’s best for your body, the same should then apply to women who want to have an abortion, shouldn’t it?

We would like to reiterate that we understand that vaccination and abortion are not the same thing — morally or philosophically. However, we would ask people to recognize there is hypocrisy in tossing around a phrase that relates to something so significant in a women’s life and not supporting their choice in the matter.