A glimpsed sign at a demonstration suggests a need for further thought and discussion.
Yesterday afternoon, while engaged in a quintessentially mundane suburban activity (back-to-school shoe-shopping with one of the kids), we drove past a street-corner demonstration. Two or three dozen people were standing in the muggy heat at a major intersection. The demonstrators waved large American flags and held up signs. The largest sign read, "Pro-American / anti-Biden". I concluded that this was a demonstration by what passes for the right wing these days.
Another sign said something along the lines of, "Parents should decide whether children wear masks." That suggested that this was an anti-face-mask demonstration. The question of whether students, teachers and other school staff members should wear masks at school this fall has roiled local school board meetings all summer. Community members have packed board meetings, passions have run high, and tempers have flared. Teachers' unions and many concerned parents want everyone to be masked this fall. Many other parents want the right to decide whether their children should be masked. The considerations play out differently at different grade levels: children 12 and up (which would cover most middle-school students and all high school students) may be vaccinated, although of course many aren't. Anyone under 12 is not eligible for vaccination. The conventional wisdom we've all been absorbing for the last year+ is that schools seemingly are relatively safe, compared to other congregate settings, in part because children seem less prone than adults to infection by the virus. But the Delta variant (as well as other actual and future variants) seems to make public health officials less certain about this received wisdom.
As it happens, Governor Pritzker preemptively ended the masks-in-schools debate for Illinois by issuing a masks-in-schools executive order a few days ago. All students through grade 12, as well as all kids in daycare, must wear masks this fall. This edict has not been universally well-received.
Given those recent developments, I was surprised not to notice any anti-Pritzker signs at yesterday's rally, but I only was able to catch a few glimpses of the event as I sailed through the intersection. Had I not had a passenger with me, I would have turned onto a side street, parked the car, and walked back to do a little amateur reporting and cell phone photo-snapping for NewGathering.
But what really struck me was a particular sign held by one of the demonstrators. The sign read, "I control my body". I interpreted that message to refer to mask-wearing: "Hey, Governor Pritzker, and the CDC, and whoever else is trying to control my life: I get to decide whether or not to mask up, not you."
But a mask mandate isn't the only context in which one might hear the slogan, "I control my body". That surely is a pro-choice slogan as well.
Had I stopped to do the amateur reporting, the person holding that sign is the one for whom I would have made a bee-line. I would have inquired whether s/he was aware that his/her sign was a pro-choice slogan.
I would expect the demonstrators on that corner mostly would self-identify as pro-life. But as new issues, like the coronavirus and mask-wearing, grow in importance in society, sometimes they shine new light on old issues like abortion.
FWIW: I consider the coronavirus to be a pro-life issue. As someone who is pro-life, I am willing to accept some limits on a person's autonomy over his/her own body. To put it simply: I think choosing not to be vaccinated is immoral - and it's an immoral choice with life implications. Getting vaccinated is a prudent way to seek to preserve our own lives, and it's also a prudent way to minimize the chance that we'll spread the virus to others, possibly killing them.
Similarly, I would say that a person who isn't vaccinated, and perhaps even a person who is vaccinated, has a moral obligation to wear a mask when around others.
I trust that I am being consistent in also asserting that a pregnant woman shouldn't have an unfettered right to end the human life in her womb.
So at least to this extent, I think I am being consistent in my pro-life views. But I am not certain that others are. Supposing the sign-waver in question is pro-life, I think s/he is being inconsistent.
Had I not had a passenger with me, I would have turned onto a side street, parked the car, and walked back to do a little amateur reporting and cell phone photo-snapping for NewGathering.
ReplyDeleteHad I stopped to do the amateur reporting, the person holding that sign is the one for whom I would have made a bee-line. I would have inquired whether s/he was aware that his/her sign was a pro-choice slogan.
Wow! In this day and age I would not stop and go up to any demonstrator no matter what signs they carried. I think most of them are ready to become belligerent to anyone in whom they detect any slight hint of disagreement. The days of "peaceful demonstration" are long over. And any hint of being a "reporter" snapping photographs may well be a provocation.
Jack - I admit I hadn't thought of that angle. There still are peaceful demonstrations. I've written here in the past about a couple of pro-life marches and demonstrations. Those were very peaceful. Although I'm told that pro-choice counter-demonstrators have turned violent in the past, hurling full bottles of water and other things at the pro-life marchers. I haven't witnessed that, though (and for all I know, there are two sides to that story). Fwiw, at the most recent Chicago March for Life, I was asked to be on the outer perimeter of the marchers - they wanted to keep the high school kids and other children in the middle to shield them from any trouble.
DeleteAnd there are marches nearly every day in Chicago, some of them led by Michael Pfleger or other Catholic pastors, to bring an end to shootings in Chicago (which badly needs to happen - there were 70+ shootings this past weekend. There is at least one mass shooting every single weekend. It's awful). Those also are very peaceful.
But you're right: those demonstrators I saw could have been "storm-the-capitol" types. I'll bear that in mind.
Very likely at least a few storm-the-capitol types and a lot of concealed carry types. One wrong move on someone’s part and your quiet suburban neighborhood could become a mini-inner city Chicago.,
DeleteThe demonstrators waved large American flags and held up signs. The largest sign read, "Pro-American / anti-Biden". I concluded that this was a demonstration by what passes for the right wing these days.
DeleteThe curiosity this demonstration evoked in Jim suggests to me that it came from the people outside the normal Republican Catholic pro-life groups. The Pew study on faith based approaches to vaccination found that Republicans that used mainstream, even Fox news, were less likely to have anti-vaccine views. Republicans who used alt right social media sources were the anti-vaccine people and they were much more likely to be Evangelicals.
If there had been a lot of anti-Pritzker signs, then these may have been the anti government groups that have been bent on storming government buildings. Of course leaders of those groups may now be taming down their rhetoric for fear of government monitoring as they recruit people.
I've checked Google a couple of times to see if any of the small local suburban news outlets (there are a few independents, running on a shoestring) had covered the demonstration I saw - was hoping someone had posted photos. I found an article from April indicating that that particular intersection - in fact, that particular corner of that particular intersection - was a regular gathering place for Trump supporters on Saturday afternoons last winter and spring, when the so-called "stop the steal" campaign was fermenting more than it is now. I think what I saw was just one more in that series.
DeleteThese guys always are on the northwest corner. Seems that counterdemonstrators sometimes gather on the northeast corner. The police department for that suburb is actively involved in maintaining the peace. Happy to note that I haven't seen any reports of shootings.
It's simple: no masks, no school attendance.
ReplyDeleteThe right to be stupid should NOT be a right to endanger others.
I've seen "my body, my choice" a lot in connection with vaccines and masks. It's not always clear if they are being ironic or not. Maybe the same mindset is driving both the pro-choicers and the anti-vaxxers? One can see it as a type of libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteKatherine- yes. And now that you mention it, the sign may have read, "My body, my choice".
DeleteApparently the use of that phrase is deliberate - an in your face bit of rhetoric.
DeleteBut, as one critic pointed out, it’s apples and oranges. Abortions are not contagious. Covid is highly contagious and those who choose not to be vaccinated without a valid medical reason, represent a potentially mortal danger to those who are around them.