In an interview with Utah Public Radio on Tuesday, Cache County Executive David Zook shared his thoughts on vaccine mandates and abortion rights after a listener compared the two.
Although the show discussed a number of topics, listeners honed in on the comments Zook made about vaccine mandates.
“I spoke out against the vaccine mandate and I proposed a resolution in opposition against the mandate,” Zook said. “He (the listener) asked me about that position and I explained … that people should have medical freedom and freedom to decide what types of medical treatments to receive.”
The question proposed that morning: “Does Mr. Zook have the same opinion when it comes to government and reproductive rights?”
Zook explained that he does not believe those two issues fall in the same realm because the issue changes when freedom infringes on the rights of others and someone’s life is taken.
“I do believe that abortion is evil. Are there cases or situations where it might be appropriate? Yes,” he said. “There probably are some situations where that happens. That’s not what the debate is about. … It’s about the tens of millions of babies who have been aborted, the misuse of that procedure and the way that the baby’s rights have been ignored.”
In comparison to vaccine mandates, Zook made it clear that he was not anti-vaccine and has encouraged many family members to get vaccinated. For Zook, it’s important to preserve medical freedom and keep the government out of personal issues they should not be involved in.
“I explained that my preference was that the government’s role be to provide information to the public and to allow people the freedom to decide what they are going to do with that information,” he said.
A follow-up question during the UPR interview asked Zook about his stance on masks and protecting adults. Zook cautioned against a push to have the government take a more intrusive role in people’s lives.
“Although they might be supportive in this case of the government imposing its will on individuals, on many other subjects they would absolutely not want the government to impose on them. It’s a slippery slope to say the government should have more power to impose things on people,” Zook said to the listener.
Zook explained to The Herald Journal that he does not believe that it is fair to argue for a woman’s right to choose when there is an unborn child involved with rights and freedoms.
“It’s a very complex issue. I think it’s something that deserves debate and consideration,” Zook said. “It definitely should not be as easy as it is now.”
Zook ended his thoughts by sharing his opinion on Roe v. Wade, which, passed in 1973, protected abortion rights through the third trimester. Although there has been discussion and attempts to overturn the court decision, the precedent has stuck.
“I predict or at least hope that someday we will come to the realization … that was a turning point in our history where we decided that it was OK to take the lives of our unborn children,” Zook told The Herald Journal. “I hope someday we realize how wrong that was and I hope it is looked back on the same way we look back at the Holocaust now. We have had our own genocide in our country that is currently continuing to happen and is legal.”
{span id=”docs-internal-guid-5ec03a5d-7fff-212c-df71-ba0f46446dfc”}{span id=”docs-internal-guid-5ec03a5d-7fff-212c-df71-ba0f46446dfc”}The full interview with UPR can be listened to {span id=”docs-internal-guid-5ec03a5d-7fff-212c-df71-ba0f46446dfc”}here.
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