Governors are banning “vaccine passports” (which provide proof of vaccination to enable the bearer to interact more freely) because they are an “unnecessary government intrusion” into the private lives of citizens.
Of course we can contrast this with the government intrusion into the VERY private lives of women across the nation in dictating who they can see, what they can afford, and that steps they are allowed to take with their own bodies. Because once a woman becomes pregnant she magically transforms into chattel of a state who can legally dictate what she can or can’t do. Abortion aside, if she takes drugs, throws herself down a flight of stairs, or in any way harms the lifeform leeching off her body then she is liable. Anti-abortionists would ensure that, willing or unwilling, if a woman is made pregnant, she should be forced to endure the pregnancy – no matter the circumstances around getting pregnant, health risk to the mother, or viability of the fetus.
I’m always entertained by how the application of “privacy” varies by gender. Contact tracing, where you systematically trace back infection to people who you met and might have infected, is bemoaned by many as violation of privacy. Hunting down women by raiding abortion clinics and digging through medical records, on the other hand, is a documented technique and obviously NOT a violation of privacy. Remarkable.
Of course in the post-tRumpian era lawmakers have made statements comparing abortion to slavery with key comments like “at least slaves were alive.” Apart from the appalling ignorance of trying to draw parallels between the murder and enslavement of generations of Africans, the level of stupid it takes to flip the very definition of slavery is precious.
Privacy means many things to many people. In a time of a deadly pandemic, I am completely in favor of sharing my vaccination status with others, even complete strangers. It does not force anyone to do anything other than share information. I compare this to, say, denying a woman the right to decide if she wants to risk her life in childbirth.
I guess it’s all in the perspective.