Life boils down to making good choices

The pro-choice movement in Idaho is gaining momentum.

Not only were a couple hundred pro-choice demonstrators devoting their lunch hours last week outside Kootenai Health, but they’ve been showing up at school board meetings around the state, too, strongly expressing the same opinions seen on posters and pickets in Coeur d’Alene.

Apparently, more Idahoans than previously suspected really do want Roe v Wade to stand. They’re demanding that legal, governmental and religious interests butt out of their personal business.

“MY BODY, MY CHOICE,” one big placard declared Thursday outside Kootenai Health, a sentiment that’s echoing across the Gem State.

That the throngs are actually protesting against the possibility of medical employers requiring employee vaccines or school boards imposing masks again — nothing to do with abortion — is beside the point. In these volatile, suspicious, up-yours times, a little hypocrisy can go a long way. Personal choice is as good an excuse as any to not let common sense get in the way of a good protest.

At the same time that protesters were out on street corners, local social media was gleefully spreading the gospel of dangerous misinformation. Alleged patriot groups and others are promoting use of an anti-COVID medication: Horse dewormer. No, that’s not a sick joke.

The Food and Drug Administration has posted a warning saying humans should not consume ivermectin — the active ingredient used to kill worms in horses — or any other product intended to treat animals. Further, the FDA’s warning says it’s not just the active ingredients but the inactive ingredients in many unapproved products that could make you sick or kill you.

Part of a government conspiracy? Maybe big pharma is quaking in its expensive boots, worried that the masses will kick COVID with an inexpensive, easy-to-access product? Sorry, that's horse puckey. How can anyone rationalize putting in their body a drug that was made for 1,000-pound nonhumans yet protest a vaccine that has been proven effective in many tens of millions of cases?

Idaho is being scorched by the Delta variant, and Kootenai County is one of the state’s hottest spots. On Friday, Kootenai Health officials said that during this current surge, 97 percent of all COVID patients requiring hospitalization have not been vaccinated.

Medical experts are concerned that if we proceed along the path that has led to this point, the worst is yet to come, likely this fall. Is that really what protesters want, schools and businesses shutting down, the economy getting derailed, our hospitals being inundated with horrifically ill hordes?

There is a very simple alternative that would circumvent employers or anybody else mandating vaccines. It involves free choice.

Choose to get vaccinated.