Bioethics and American Democracy publication

Lockdowns were not just an untested public health measure. They were a new paradigm of governance.

No scientific accountability will ever take place under existing government leadership.

It would be hard to devise a better method than the widespread myth of asymptomatic spread combined with quarantining the healthy to destroy the fabric of society and to divide us.

In these proposed laws we see the welding of public health, digital technologies, and the police powers of the state into an invasive model of surveillance and control.

Human flourishing requires both public health and individual liberty and an appropriate balance between these goods when they conflict. We know that human beings flourish in community; we are social by nature. As such, we should not be surprised that government Covid-19 regulations mandating school closures, lockdowns, masking, and vaccination have isolated us from our fellow citizens and imposed significant attendant harms. It is time to declare this emergency over and once again let people take responsibility for themselves.

20th Century German medicine offers a cautionary tale that we do well not to forget.

Continued compliance with manifestly unjust and often absurd mandates will not return us to a normal functioning society. Every good-faith or selfless act of compliance on the part of citizens has only resulted in more illogical pandemic “countermeasures” that further erode our civil liberties, harm our overall health, and undermine human flourishing.

EPPC Fellow Aaron Kheriaty, a Catholic psychiatrist and ethicist who was fired last month from the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, explains why he made a principled stand in opposition to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations.

The same essential people who courageously worked on the frontlines defending us during COVID now face bullying from their peers and no support from the government of a country that was founded on freedom.

In August, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty challenged the UC vaccine mandate in federal court. On December 16, the University fired him for refusing the vaccine.

Other nations would do well to follow Japan’s lead with this balanced and ethical approach.

Vaccine mandates and passports are an early and opportunistic step toward new modes of governance and social control.