Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, announced on Sept. 3 that he was working to eliminate all vaccine mandates from state law.
“The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law,” he said at a press conference. “All of them.”
“Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said.
“Who am I, as a government … to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?
“I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God.”
Jeff Childers, an attorney in Gainesville, Florida, who spent years opposing mask and vaccination mandates in court during the COVID-19 pandemic, told The Epoch Times that Ladapo’s use of the word slavery was more than just a “rhetorical trick” and touched on a related issue: bodily autonomy.
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“The sanctity of your body, or whether you can be considered property when the community requires it, that’s that kind of polarizing issue like slavery … there is no in between.”
One form of those mandates is vaccine requirements for students to attend school. Such requirements currently stand in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
All 50 states allow medical exemptions. Only five states do not allow for any non-medical exemption.
Ladapo said he would work with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and lawmakers to ensure the mandates are terminated, but did not go into detail.
Childers said that such legislation could be drafted during the state legislature’s upcoming “working session,” ready for voting during the regular session next Spring.
“We need to end it,” Ladapo said of the mandates. ”It’s the right thing to do, and it'll be wonderful for Florida to be the first state to do it.”
—T.J. Muscaro
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