Dr. Mihnea Capraru, a philosopher from Kazakhstan, has used a controversial magazine to claim that mandatory vaccines are ‘morally akin’ to sexual harassment
Forcing vaccines on people is “morally akin” to sexual harassment, one philosopher has controversially argued.
Dr. Mihnea Capraru, from Kazakhstan, argued that it is morally wrong for employers to harass staff to get what he describes as a “medical penetration.”
He even likened it to people being pressured or extorted to undergo “sexual penetration.”
The Nazarbayev University academic said any form of non-consensual vaccination was “morally impermissible” for similar reasons.
Write in the Journal of Controversial IdeasDr. Capraru admitted that the “seriousness” of such incidents was not necessarily comparable.
He argues that non-consensual vaccination, such as physically forcing someone to get a shot, is wrong for the same reasons as sexual assault.
While policies that enforce mandatory vaccination, threatening people with harsh consequences such as losing their jobs or restricting their freedom of movement, are more akin to sexual harassment in the workplace, he argues.
Such controversial rules were passed in Britain and the US during the pandemic.
During the height of Covid, unincentive health care workers in England and health workers in some US states were forced to quit their jobs for refusing to get vaccinated.
Conservative politicians denounced policies requiring “vaccination passports” to enter nightclubs and other venues as a “terrible” restriction on individual freedoms.
Is pressuring someone to get a vaccine and threatening them with financial penalties or restrictions akin to sexual harassment? A philosopher thinks so in a controversial new paper
For most pandemic countries, including the US, UK and Japan, foreigners also require proof of Covid vaccination.
Dr. Capraru, who previously studied in upstate New York, shared his thoughts in the magazine and illustrated his point by describing a bizarre scenario in which a virus emerges in 2025 with an estimated mortality rate of up to 1 percent – similar to that of Covid.
In a twist, some people are naturally immune to the virus, and a weakened version of this protection can somehow be transmitted through sex.
However, because some people refuse to have sex with strangers, Dr. Capraru explains that experts have been forced to develop a way to provide the same protection through a “medical dildo” instead.
But some still refuse because of the sexual penetration element.
He then goes through multiple steps with the ‘dildo’ getting smaller and smaller until, instead of delivering immunity through sexual contact, it does so through the skin – essentially becoming a vaccine.
But for some people, none of this is enough. Dr. Capraru explains that no matter how small the object may be, it can still represent a ‘violation’ of bodily autonomy.
“While it is no longer assault, it is a physical assault, and one of a deeply disturbing kind,” he said.
Dr. Capraru then enters the final phase of his narrative, where politicians are taking a “carrot and stick” approach to force the vaccine hesitant to get the jab, echoing some of the policies put in place during the very real Covid pandemic.
“Some people get money or other benefits in exchange for permission,” he said.
“The rest are banned from restaurants, shopping malls, trains, planes and buses, they are laid off and not given a new job.
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Dr. Capraru therefore argued that we should condemn non-consensual vaccination and all pressures and threats to get people to sign up for jabs, based on the same logic we use for sexual harassment.
“We all agree that if a company threatens to fire an employee for refusing to have sex with the boss, that’s sexual harassment,” he said.
“Similarly, if the company threatens to fire the employee for refusing to be sexually penetrated with a medical dildo, that’s still sexual harassment.”
Dr. Capraru argues that this logic is not intended to equate sexual harassment and vaccine harassment as equally wrong, but that both are simply morally reprehensible.
He concluded by arguing that in any situation where sexual intercourse would be considered non-consensual and thus wrong, so would vaccination.
While Dr Capraru’s article is a philosophical debate, the Covid vaccine mandates in the UK and beyond had real consequences.
Around 40,000 care home workers in England were made redundant in November 2021 for not being unvaccinated against Covid under the government’s then-no jab no job policy.
Ministers quickly reversed policy, abandoning a similar move for the NHS.
But the turnaround came too late for the ailing care home sector, with industry bosses warning that many would not be bothered to return to the vastly understaffed sector.
While mandatory vaccination came into focus during the Covid pandemic, the idea is not new.
Politicians have previously argued that the NHS and care home staff should be forced to get the flu shot to help protect patients in the winter season.
Some NHS staff are already required to get a hepatitis B shot if they want to work in parts of the healthcare system where there is a risk their blood could come into contact with a patient’s internal tissues.
This is to minimize the risk of a medic passing the disease on to a patient if they accidentally cut themselves, for example with a scalpel during surgery.
In the US, the City of New York has issued a Covid vaccination mandate for all healthcare workers and employees and customers of indoor dining, fitness and entertainment venues.
American sports were also affected, with basketball players refusing to get the vaccine unable to play in certain games subject to restrictions in certain states.
Countries can also enforce vaccination as a condition of entry for non-citizens and some have done so even before Covid.
For example, some countries in the tropics require people from countries with yellow fever, a serious viral infection spread by mosquitoes, to get a shot before they are allowed in.
They do this because, in theory, a person with yellow fever entering the country could then be bitten by mosquitoes that could cause further infections.
Dr. Capraru’s article is just the latest outrageous argument to be featured in the Journal of Controversial Ideas.
Other authors have used the publication to argue that it is ethical to let people who eat meat die, that a biological man claiming to be a woman is no different from those claiming to be a dragon, and even one where a researcher openly admitted to being a pedophile. and argued that society should be “more tolerant of people who are attracted to children.”