Executive Orders
It has become tradition for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a ruling upending some piece of legislation or order, and for Congress and the President to then find a workaround. It doesn’t matter which political party is in power, and it’s part of the checks and balances of our system.
Given Congress’ lack of ability to pass anything this year, it’s the President signing two executive orders of late in response to pending issues.
One has to do with vaccinations. Concerns have been raised about too many different shots being given, especially in a short time, to the youngest of children. As I learned through interviews with medical experts on KXEL, parents often did not have a choice because the pharmaceutical companies combined multiple serums into a single shot; the stated concept was to avoid sticking the child with needles so many times. But that took away parental choice; if I as a parent did not want my child to be vaccinated for one thing, but it was part of a vaccination for things I did want, I had no choice. The executive order has the effect of increasing parental choice by reducing the number of required vaccinations, meaning the companies will have to offer options in order to better serve the patient. What a startling concept.
The other has to do with the abuse of birthright citizenship, which is already a somewhat flawed concept, but of late has become a cottage industry for tourism. The executive order has the effect of denying admission into the country of individuals who would give birth here. So if you’re a company working to gain short-term visas for women who are well along in their pregnancies…you just saw your business come to a halt, which was the chief goal of the challenge to birthright citizenship generally—stop people from abusing the system by traveling to the U.S. just so their progeny can have U.S. citizenship.
I’m no fan of government-by-executive-order, because the next person in the chair can undo what the last one did. But when no one else will take action, there are not many remaining options.
