In Damon Young’s Washington Post advice column, he received a question from the babysitter of a 9-month-old who asked if the babysitter should abduct the infant for vaccination since the parents oppose all vaccines.
“My best friend is an antivaxxer (not only COVID, all the vaccines). His wife is, too,” wrote the inquirer. “They have a 9-month-old baby and they haven’t vaccinated him. I babysit for them every other weekend. Should I take the baby to get his shots without telling them?”
In response, Young admonished the babysitter not to take the baby: “What you’re suggesting is reckless, egregious and possibly even criminal.”
But Young also launched a sermon regarding the virtues – indeed, the obligations — of vaccinating children.
And his statements make one see how the babysitter came up with such radical thoughts, or as Young described it: “You’ve burrowed so deeply in the rabbit hole of self-righteousness that you’ve come up on the wrong side.”
The columnist’s vaccine advocacy is in spite of Young’ being black, meaning that “my skepticism of our health-care system, based on my awareness of the profound racial disparities existing within it – historically and presently – is justified.”
But he’s all in for the COVID shots.
Like most of us, Young admits to ignorance regarding intricate aspects of medical science. But, he wrote: “I trust that the PhDs and MDs who’ve spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn about it, and whose livelihoods are predicated on the retention and application of that knowledge, know much more about it than I’d ever know.”
Some of those professionals are family and good friends, he said. “All medical doctors or science-related PhDs unanimous in their belief – no, plea – that everyone get vaccinated.”
Is it wrong to force children to take the COVID vaccine?
So, it’s the consensus-of-science gambit, using the word “all,” meaning it’s what every professional believes, even though Young indicates it’s limited to his family and friends.
But all medical doctors don’t buy into every vaccination, especially COVID, and especially for children and infants. Some, in their dissent, have put their medical licenses on the line.
And while I’m unable to determine what current figures are, at the time the vaccines were initially rolled out in 2021, the biggest single group identified as resisting them were individuals with PhD degrees.
That’s because they, as I did, presumably took the time to burrow into medical journals, government websites and elsewhere and did not like what could be determined about the narrative on COVID and the shots.
Columnist Young can make his own decisions, of course, and obviously he has. But the unquestioned advocacy of vaccinations by him and others in the media show how an impressionable young babysitter might come up with crazy ideas.
“My desire to prevent more infection, sickness and death is a force greater than cynicism,” Young wrote.
Directly to the babysitter, he said: “I was tempted to suggest that you attempt to sway them into getting vaccinated, but if an active pandemic that has killed millions of people — plus all of the social restrictions of being unvaccinated — hasn’t convinced them yet, I’m not sure what else would.”
Note the reasoning: We should get shots so we don’t die. But in truth, we probably won’t die, unless we’re older and already have health issues.
And social restrictions aren’t much of an argument, since vaccinated people repeatedly have gotten COVID.
Thankfully, Young made a good case to the babysitter not to do anything stupid. Sadly, his line of reasoning – advocated by many others – show how the babysitter could arrive at the radical thought of abducting a baby, thinking it was for the child’s own good.
