BLUF: Yes, an abortion ban is different from a vaccine mandate. You don't contradict yourself when you back one and oppose the other.
With an abortion ban, you are preventing the CERTAIN, unambiguous death of another human being. The justification for a vaccine mandate, on the other hand, is based on a fuzzy hypothetical that an unvaccinated individual may - MAY - spread COVID to someone vulnerable and consequently kill him. These are not equivalent. The probability that a human being dies in an abortion = 1. The probability that someone dies in the hypothetical COVID scenario = P(vulnerable & unjabbed) × P(encounters someone sick with COVID because unjabbed) × P(dies because vulnerable) -- which is not zero but certainly FAR less than 1.
We generally allow adults enormous latitude to make their own decisions despite the non-zero risk in some cases that somebody else might die because we rightfully realize that toggling maximum acceptable risk to zero is unsustainable. Where should the slider be set instead? That's up for legitimate debate. But RATIONAL people understand that zero risk is utopian and 100% risk is out of the question. Hence: opposition to abortion CAN coexist quite comfortably and non-hypocritically with opposition to vax mandates because our ethical choice is NOT between 100% bodily freedom and 100% harm reduction. There are other considerations at play.
Chief among these considerations? The necessity - or the lack thereof - of the thing you wish to impose by force (vaccines) or restrict by force (in the case of abortion).
The evidence suggests that COVID vaccines work to prevent serious disease and death (though not, it appears, all infections). (Yes, some in my audience are going to dispute what I just said, but that's my impression of the data -- and that's why I got the jab.) One thing we should ask ourselves, however, is whether vaccines are the ONLY way to do this. Frankly, I have no reason to believe this is so. I have no reason to believe vaccines are the SOLE solution because our so-called "expert class" has deliberately suppressed the exploration of other options. If we can't even DISCUSS Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine without some social media busybody flagging such posts, then how can we possibly say that either has been thoroughly investigated? If anything, this aggressive, one-way, and OPEN massaging of information quite rightfully raises suspicions that our "experts" are hiding something for their own personal gain.
To be sure, I don't know if Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine are efficacious alternatives to vaccination because the evidence for either is limited and mixed (as far as I can tell). But I can't wholly trust these findings because I KNOW the environment in which they've been generated is hostile to open inquiry, structurally resistant to the publication of less-preferred results, and therefore likely to be wildly mistaken. (See also: the broader scale replication crisis in the sciences.)
And please further note: there is also evidence that if you've had COVID already, you have a natural immunity that is robust in comparison with that induced by vaccines. But this too has been suppressed in the push to promote vaccines above everything else.
What I'm trying to get at here: the case for the necessity of COVID vaccines is not a strong one. It doesn't meet the requirements for a restriction on adult freedom in the same way that, say, a law against murder might.
Now let's turn to abortion. Are there alternatives? Yes, absolutely. As a Catholic, I'm no supporter of birth control, but in all honesty, I would rather people break God's law by using condoms or taking the pill than by outright killing their children. Even better? You can simply abstain from sex. Trust me: no one is going to explode if she puts off intercourse. Indeed, even liberal women can't help but reveal this is the case each time they threaten sex strikes in the wake of stiffer abortion restrictions. If you can keep your knees together to accomplish some political goal, you can certainly do so to safeguard your oh-so-valuable career. And even if you fail to delay gratification or your birth control method fails, you still don't necessarily have to embrace motherhood if it interferes with your plans. There are many infertile couples out there who would jump at the chance to adopt your "oopsie."
In short, abortion is NOT essential. Except in a very few edge situations (for which the pro-life movement is generally willing to permit legalization), abortion is an elective procedure that women are using to avoid the consequences of their piss-poor choices. Women have ample opportunity in the current age to avoid conception. That is where the "choice" should be made. Once another life is involved - a life YOU created - "choice" is basically a euphemism for "unwanted, vulnerable people should die for my convenience."
BLATE: The support of abortion restrictions does not contradict the opposition to vaccine mandates because the former involves the inevitable death of another human being while the latter does not. Moreover, there is no good argument for the necessity of abortion and a weak one for COVID vaccines. Thus, restricting freedom in the former case to prevent the loss of innocent life is ethically correct -- while restricting freedom in the latter case is not currently supportable by the facts.
(I will grant this, though: if you oppose both abortion restrictions AND vax mandates, you are on firmer ethical ground than our leftist friends who think we should be absolutely free to procure abortions but should be punished for resisting an injection we don't want.)
