Anti-Vaxxers Wage Cruel War on Pregnant Women Who Get COVID Shot

[Celerity]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxxers-wage-cruel-war-on-pregnant-women-who-get-covid-shot



Last week, Michelle Rockwell logged on to Facebook to see her face splashed across a post from someone she’d never met. Two months earlier, Rockwell had lost her baby in a tragic miscarriage, and the post—a collage of text and pictures from her popular Instagram—insinuated that the COVID-19 vaccine was the culprit. “Dec. 21 she got it,” it read. “Jan. 24th, she lost her baby. Another one.” The post was entirely inaccurate. (In her own Instagram post on the subject, Rockwell called it “bullshit.”) Rockwell, a family medicine doctor, had indeed received the vaccine on Dec. 21, but had miscarried almost a month before that. But that didn’t stop the post from spreading rapidly across social media, via pastel-tinted mommy pages and anti-vaxxer Instagram accounts like “cv19vaccinereactions.”

And it wasn’t the first time anti-vax activists had descended on a woman after her miscarriage. Since the first days of the vaccine rollout, anti-vaxxers have targeted pregnant women and those who miscarried, shaming them for getting the vaccine despite no evidence that it has a negative effect on pregnancy. On Facebook groups, Instagram pages, and Twitter threads, they accuse the women of being bad mothers or blame them for losing their babies. “It was heartbreaking. I definitely shed some tears over it,” Rockwell said. “To attack women who’ve gone through so much, that’s just a new low.” “So many women right now have vaccine hesitancy, and are questioning it, and have legitimate concerns,” she added. “And I feel like whoever made this is just preying on women’s fears.”



Questions about the vaccine in pregnancy are not unwarranted: None of the COVID-19 shots have been tested on pregnant women, making the decision to be vaccinated a fraught one—especially for health-care workers like Rockwell, who are at higher risk of exposure to the virus. The CDC says the vaccine is “unlikely to pose a specific risk for people who are pregnant,” and the World Health Organization says it knows of no specific risks that would outweigh the risks of exposure. Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci said 20,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated against COVID-19 without complications. Pregnant women, meanwhile, are known to be more susceptible to severe illness and death if they contract COVID-19.

But anti-vaxxers are preying on the uncertainty that remains. Facebook groups specifically targeting new and expecting mothers circulate stories about people who died after getting the vaccine without the proper context. Anti-vax organizations like Vaccine Choice Canada have circulated fliers with baseless claims that the vaccines contain “genetic technology” that can put developing pregnancies at risk. In the most extreme cases, anti-vax activists directly attack women who lost their pregnancies after receiving the vaccine. One such woman, a doctor whom The Daily Beast is not naming in order to protect her privacy, tweeted in January that she had received the vaccine when she was 14 weeks pregnant. Days later, she announced that she had miscarried. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine causes miscarriage, but anti-vaxxers leapt quickly from coincidence to causation and descended into the doctor’s mentions to accuse her of killing her child.

snip

[COL Mustard]

1. These Anti-Vaxxers Are Nuts

And they're evil for doing this.

[smirkymonkey]

2. These people are sick!

What a horrible thing to do to somebody. As if these women aren't in enough pain already.

[roamer65]

3. Thank you for two Twitter accounts to target.

[Celerity]

9. +10000000000000000

[demigoddess]

4. anti vaxxers are nuts! I've been vaccinated against things most people aren't

and I have two sons in the high IQ category. And I am healthy as a horse. NEVER had the flu, hardly ever had a cold.

[dlk]

5. It's NONE of THEIR BUSINESS!!!

These cruel bullies need to stop. Hardly anyone is more vulnerable than a pregnant woman. This is just another twisted version of misogyny, as if to say women are too incompetent to make their own personal medical decisions. It’s gone too far for too long.

[crickets]

6. 👆👆👆

[vercetti2021]

7. Bunch of fucking troglodytes

I hope once everyone is vaccinated. The anti vaxxers die from the covid.

[maxrandb]

8. How is this not fucking harassment Facebook?

Facebook should be sued into a billion fucking pieces.

[dlk]

10. Because it's vulnerable pregnant women...