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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theories are shaking things up again, this time regarding the blood supply. An alternate blood donation infrastructure is growing. (If you don’t want to read the vaccine-skeptical take from TGP, here’s the Vice article on SafeBlood Donation they were reporting on.)

This comes after the release of the Suddenly Died documentary blaming the vaccine for the surge in heart attacks, including really odd blood clots.

I have given blood for twenty years and do not plan to stop. I don’t give through the Red Cross but rather through Vitalent, formerly United Blood Services. I am not vaccinated for COVID-19, and will continue to vehemently, vociferously, and assiduously avoid those injections, on both medical and religious grounds (though my reasoning is different than one might expect). I don’t plan to switch my donations to SafeBlood unless they can assure me it won’t be wasted, by my definitions of wasted.

All of this may seem to be a fascinating new front in the Culture War, but it’s actually an attempt to recapture territory: the denial of organ transplants to COVID-vaccine refusers.

This particular fight certainly had an effect on me. When the UK regime reimposed lockdowns for a third time at the start of 2021, in the absence of legal means to protest this, I took myself off the organ donor registry. This was based on two ideas.

  1. The majority of the population here supports lockdowns. Therefore, on average, my organs would be donated to someone who supports lockdowns. I see no reason to gift such people my lovely organs.

  2. The medical institutions of this country seem to view me as nothing more than a metaphorical sack of meat, to be used and disposed of as they wish. So, at least, I can stop them using me as a literal sack of meat. I don't exist to serve the NHS. I don't exist to be a pile of spare organs for the NHS.

When various places began discriminating against unvaccinated people when it came to receiving organ donations, this added a third motivation. I will not participate in vaccine apartheid, and if my organs would only be given to vaccinated people, the only way to do that is refuse to donate organs.

Obviously my thoughts on blood donation are similar, though the process is different. However, SafeBlood could serve as a way for me to donate to people who, while not directly opposed to my false incarceration, hold views that are a shibboleth for that.

I too left the organ donor registry for the same reasons.

I am not an insect in a hive, and I will not voluntarily be sacrificed for others who signal that they would force me, in situations that I see as being to the detriment of all regardless, if they could anyway.