Stop Death Shaming
A record of the plague dead: Stacy Forbess, 55, an Alabama twirling coach; Haley Mulkey Richardson, 32, a pregnant Alabama nurse; Cindy Dawkins, 50, a Florida restaurant worker; Martin and Trina Daniel, 53 and 49, a Georgia couple married for some 20 years; Lawrence and Lydia Rodriguez, 49 and 42, a Texas couple married for 21. All unvaccinated, and all whose deaths were covered by various papers and TV stations, with notes of shame or contempt subtle in some tales and bold in others.
Whom are these stories for? They seem to aspire to be persuasive—perhaps the unvaccinated simply don’t realize, or haven’t accepted, that COVID-19 can be quite suddenly fatal, even for the otherwise young and healthy. In that case, they could use some frightening reminders, or so the reasoning seems to go.
But if persuasion is the target, then the aim seems off—a general problem in our democracy, where
