Why would we, the WCRP, issue a Medical Rights Resolution? It’s a legitimate, albeit rhetorical, question. Legitimate, because at this point, the pandemic seems like an old wound and a political resolution is akin to a sharp stick.
The reason, however, isn’t random or partisan—it’s logical, mathematical. The pandemic was all about one basic function . . . division. It was about separating you from your rights. It was about creating a vast divide between people. Do you remember early on when wealthier areas were obtaining extra doses of the experimental vaccine? So, at first, it manifested as the age-old disunity between the “haves” and “have nots.” Then it became a racial divide. And then the gap grew between genders. At one point the worst thing you could be was a successful white male, which is as hilarious as it is tragic.
Do you remember the “Jabbed” verses the “Anti-Vaxers”? It’s a scene straight out of West Side Story, but instead of a switchblade we were battling with a syringe. And if you refused to join the gang, they took away your license, your livelihood, and, sometimes, even your liberty.
Do you remember people being arrested and imprisoned for traveling without authentic proof of the correct injections, and simultaneously, waves of illegals—without passports, medical or otherwise—flooding across the southern border? Different rules for different people. Division.
Do you remember visiting your elderly mother at the assisted living facility and being forced to wave at her through a closed window? Division. Do you remember being denied access to a hospitalized loved one, someone for whom you had a medical POA, someone who was not expected to make it through the night? Sorry, these last two are from my personal experience,
but they speak to a division that ran rampant at the time.
Do you remember the masks? And whether you wore it protect others, to shield yourself, or to signal your willingness to simply trust the powers that be, there was no better badge to separate “those of us” from the “rest of them.”
In political terms, it often fell neatly along the lines of Republican and Democrat—not always, but often. It fell more frequently along the lines of those who were willing to give up a bit of freedom for safety, and those who weren’t.
C.S. Lewis might have seen it as a kind of parallel to The Great Divorce. There are those who bend the knee to science, and there are those who kneel before God. True, they are not mutually exclusive per se. But what happens when the science side of the equation determines that observances of faith are a “non-essential” activity. I’ll tell you what happens—you get
division. And divorce.
So, believe it or not, a resolution is an attempt at reconciliation. We want to heal. We’re here to do the hard work. Things need to be changed so this doesn’t happen again. The first step, however, is to admit that there is/was a problem, “We’re all Americans. We must unite within our God-given liberties, and we must encourage our representatives to keep fighting to
protect both our state sovereignty and our medical freedom.”