To the editor:

$3 billion dollars to promote covid vaccines through Biden’s Covid-19 Community Corps program! That’s what the 4/2 article from AP said. The plan is to use community leaders who they say would be more “trusted” than government agencies to overcome what they call “vaccine hesitancy”. That is on top of the billions already awarded to the companies to manufacture the covid shots and the continuing promotion through the media, public health, and other agencies which has been ongoing and relentless.

One week after the Biden administration named Planned Parenthood to its Community Corps program,, America’s largest abortion company launched a major campaign to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and convince people to get them. Planned Parenthood announced a $2 million English and Spanish ad blitz to promote COVID-19 vaccines to at least 1.5 million people, on top of campaigns to distribute shots through clinics and mobile sites in five states.

I don’t believe using all of this tax money to “convince” people to take these new covid shots is a proper use of tax money. People have legitimate reasons for declining the shots: medical, moral, philosophical, & personal. Those need to be respected and protected by law.

I am also concerned about the cancel culture surrounding this issue. Doctors and scientists who question or want to dialogue about the narrow stream of information coming from the government about covid treatment, testing, & protocol are being censored- taken off of you-tube & social media. It is a fact of life that doctors and health care professionals sometimes have different opinions about treatment options. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one or the other is wrong. They may just have a different perspective, training, or philosophy. Frontline Doctors and the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons provide information helpful for informed consent.

The John Paul 2 Medical Research Institute should be of special interest to pro-lifers. The Institute focuses on pharmaceuticals that do not use cells derived from human embryos or aborted babies which are used in some medical research and in many of the present vaccines. I believe the future of the pro-life movement needs to be grounded in the concept that only products which are not tested on or don’t use aborted fetal cells are acceptable if we are going to be faithful to our goal of protecting human life from conception to natural death.

Mary C. Schmiesing

Sidney