[This article first appeared at Common Dreams on September 11, 2025.]

The Florida surgeon general believes you have sovereignty over your own body… unless you’re a woman! Meanwhile, Trump’s Jeffrey Epstein headache worsens as he makes money selling the Trump Bible.

by Steven J. Harper

On September 3, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo made news again. With a grinning Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) at his side, he announced that his state would no longer require vaccines for children. Even more shocking were Dr. Ladapo’s subsequent admissions on national television.

Laced throughout were Republican hypocrisy and misogyny to which President Donald Trump added an exclamation point a few days later.

“A Gift From God”

Describing Florida’s new anti-vaccine policy, Dr. Ladapo said, “Your body is a gift from God.” He added that the administration would be “working to end” all vaccine mandates. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

On September 7, he tried to defend his actions on CNN’s State of the Union:

Anchor Jake Tapper: “Before you made this decision to lift vaccine mandates for Florida, which include obviously public schools, did your department do any data analysis, did you do any data projections of how many new cases of these diseases there will be in Florida, once you remove vaccine mandates?”

Ladapo: “Absolutely not….There is this conflation of the science and sort of what is the right and wrong thing to do… I’m saying it’s an issue of right and wrong.”

Tapper confronted Dr. Ladapo with facts: 82% of Florida parents with kids in school wanted mandatory vaccines for children; every medical organization in the country (AMA, American Academy of Pediatrics, Florida Medical Association) urged mandatory vaccines for children; and even Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) supported Florida’s existing vaccine mandate, which allows religious exemptions.

Tapper: “All of these people are wrong, and you’re right.”

Ladapo: “Casting it in that way is not what I would do. It’s not how I would look at it.”

Dr. Ladapo then explained why facts don’t matter: “I share what is the right thing to do. Whether it’s popular or not…. It’s really about ethics. Is it really appropriate for a government or any other entity to dictate to you what you should put in your body? It is absolutely not appropriate.”

Then came Dr. Ladapo’s money quote: “You have sovereignty over your body.”

He forgot an important GOP caveat: Unless you’re a woman.

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