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<\/p>\nThere has never ever been a better time for the so-called “pro-life” movement of America to act urgently to, well, save some lives.<\/p>\n
America’s supply of COVID-19 vaccines will soon surpass demand.\u00a0Meanwhile Israel, with the most aggressive (yet imperfect) vaccine rollout in the world, has recorded multiple days with zero pandemic-related deaths\u00a0for the first time in 10\u00a0months \u2014 suggesting that a comprehensive national vaccination program could contain the killer virus that has already killed at least 572,000 Americans.<\/p>\n
Still, some Americans seem to be eager to stand in the way of any hope of what scientists call “herd immunity.\u201d Who are those Americans? Mostly Republican men\u00a0and white evangelicals \u2014\u00a0aka the people who\u2019ve spent the last 40\u00a0years or so telling us they are much more\u00a0concerned about \u201clife\u201d than everyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly all Americans have a chance step up to take a shot that might not only save us but also our families, our neighbors and our country\u00a0from prolonging the deadliest pandemic in a century. Yet at this Dunkirk moment,\u00a0elected Republicans have largely done the opposite of joining our armada of “little ships.”<\/p>\n
Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul have spread garbage about the effort to vaccinate as many Americans as possible.\u00a0Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acts far more concerned about efforts to make sure people are vaccinated\u00a0than he does about the effects of COVID-19, which has already killed at least 34,000 Floridians\u00a0\u2014 more\u00a0than the 32,463-vote margin\u00a0that put him in office in 2018.<\/p>\n
As an ex-president, Donald Trump urged his followers at the Conservative Political Action Conference\u00a0to get their shots\u00a0and has made a few\u00a0supportive comments since then.\u00a0But when he was still president, in January,\u00a0he and\u00a0Melania Trump were vaccinated secretly at the White House. Their off-camera shots, revealed last month, denied\u00a0the country the single most obvious image that might be used to convince reluctant Trump supporters\u00a0to join the war on COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former Vice President Mike Pence, the closest thing Republicans have to an ex-president who left office peacefully, was among the first Americans to get his shot in December of last year. Since then, he\u2019s been busy avoiding nooses brandished by fans of his two-time running mate and getting a pacemaker. Still, he\u2019s found time to try to scaremonger about unaccompanied minors at the border.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 12, 2021, in Connecticut. (Photo: Joseph Prezioso\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n And Pence isn\u2019t alone. The entire Republican Party seems to want the nation to fixate on the tragic number of 18,500 kids arriving alone at the border in March. But they can\u2019t\u00a0 find the same energy to finish off a pandemic that\u2019s still infecting more than\u00a050,000 Americans each\u00a0day, still orphaning thousands of Americans each\u00a0week.<\/p>\n And who\u2019s paying the cost of the GOP\u2019s insistence on Joe Biden and his administration almost solely responsible for the biggest public health mobilization in American history? In Michigan, the state with\u00a0the worst spike of cases in the nation, we’re\u00a0learning that the answer increasingly is\u00a0\u201cthe kids.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Just say yes: <\/strong>Are we about to hit a vaccine wall? If you have doubts about getting the shot, reconsider.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to shame pro-lifers into caring about actual children as much as they do about fertilized eggs. While this effort may get you some retweets, it doesn\u2019t change the right\u2019s behavior in the least. It\u2019s like trying to translate Republicans\u2019 professed affection for Israel into an appreciation of Israel\u2019s national universal health care.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure President Biden, who has led an awesome nationalized rollout of vaccinations that has exceeded most reasonable expectations, will humbly call for all Americans to join the fight when he addresses Congress on Wednesday. Unfortunately, this clarion call from a man nearly\u00a070% of Republicans think stole the election\u00a0with his tricky strategy of getting 7 million more votes than Donald Trump may only increase Republican hesitancy to get injected.<\/p>\n The right\u2019s inherent suspicion of government power, which suddenly reappears when Republicans aren\u2019t in power, is being compounded by the way COVID-19 was turned into a culture war with the bombastic leadership of the last president. Republican leaders recognize there are few rewards that come with breaking with their party\u2019s base. And who wants to help a Democratic president in the task that will largely define the success of his presidency? So we\u2019re stuck.<\/p>\n Even talking about vaccine hesitancy helps normalize it, especially when it\u2019s me, a lib, doing it. Would Republicans risk their own voters’ lives just to \u201cown\u201d me? Ask the millions of Americans who have been denied Medicaid insurance because their Republican governors refuse to expand it under the Affordable Care Act \u2014 even though the federal government is footing almost the entire bill.<\/p>\n We have never been more desperate for Republican heroes who want to save their own constituents’ lives, and they\u2019ve never been harder to find. So I\u2019m begging GOP leaders to care as much about their fellow Republicans\u2019 health and survival as much as this lib does.<\/p>\n Former CDC chief<\/strong>: Think diners, dentists and dollar stores. Make COVID vaccines easy to get.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n We may disagree about when life begins, but we can all agree that every American who is 16 and over and now eligible for free vaccines has met that standard. Go out and brag about taking Mr. Trump\u2019s shots that were basically invented by Mr. Trump himself (even though the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were already in clinical trials before Operation Warp Speed was even announced.)<\/p>\n Do whatever you have to do to make vaccination an issue of patriotism and not partisanship.<\/p>\nPlease care about your voters’ lives<\/h2>\n