I don't think it's a special pleading. Covid is a nasty coronavirus but it is ultimately an incremental change in a very widespread kind of virus that humans have coexisted with forever. Human beings have evolved to survive this kind of thing as a species. This is the kind of risk that a species has to be equipped to survive to have made it this far. Which is not to say that a virus can't come around and wipe us all out, but it would be a truly extraordinary event.
For all we know, mRNA vaccines can alter your gametes. We don't know because this is the first time we ever use them. They aren't like viruses or weakened viruses. They are just a massive injection of genetic material (much of it deformed) that encodes a single foreign protein. No human being has ever had such a thing done to them until very recently. mRNA vaccines are not part of any natural process that modern humans or our ancestors have had to withstand to get to the present day.
Viruses are like super mRNA vaccines. They commandeer your cells not to just create a single protein, but to create a bunch of proteins in order to form new viruses. And unlike mRNA, they reproduce and can stay in your body for months or years. I don't see the huge new risk.
I don't know why you have this special concern about the gametes. In any case, if there's a significant bump in miscarriages / infertility from the vaccine, we'll probably know very soon, now that lots of younger people are being vaccinated.
The fact that the vaccines create just a single spike protein and the real virus creates much more is actually one of the issues.
First: does the rate at which the cells are made to artificially produce spike protein follow a different curve than the rate at which SARS-2 would? i.e. could mRNA vaccination cause a much more aggressive "inflammatory cliff", thus the huge percentage of "mild" adverse reactions (mild meaning, you feel like death for a day but end up fine with no detectable long-term issues)? It's possible.
And switching to efficacy, while personally I think resistance to the spike protein alone will be sufficient, because SARS-2 does not have the same ability to mutate/evolve the way Influenza does (for example, I can't imagine SARS-2 evolving away from the spike protein), it's very possible that the diverse epitopes produced by real SARS-2 infection give a much more robust and enduring immunity.
Your point about efficacy is not currently born out by the data, AFAIK. Seems like re-infection after COVID is much higher than infection after vaccine.
I have special concern about gametes because it’s one thing to risk the health of currently living people, but it’s another to risk the gene pool going forward into eternity.
For all we know, mRNA vaccines can alter your gametes. We don't know because this is the first time we ever use them. They aren't like viruses or weakened viruses. They are just a massive injection of genetic material (much of it deformed) that encodes a single foreign protein. No human being has ever had such a thing done to them until very recently. mRNA vaccines are not part of any natural process that modern humans or our ancestors have had to withstand to get to the present day.