Court of Appeal for Sask. decides child should not be vaccinated against their will

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has thrown out a ruling that would see a 13-year-old receive the COVID-19 vaccine, despite not wanting to get it.

“In this case, there is a risk, albeit small, that a forced vaccination may prompt this child to self-harm, and a much greater risk that it will cause other very real psychological and emotional harm to this child,” Justices Peter Whitmore, Robert Leurer, and Brian Barrington-Foote wrote in the court decision.

However, the court also concluded it would be in the child’s best interest to be vaccinated.

“The child’s physical safety, security and well being would be served by receiving the Pfizer vaccine.”

The dispute arose between the parents of the child, who are divorced. While they share custody, the child lives primarily with the mother. After the separation, a trial judge allowed the mother to have the final decision-making authority with regard to education and medical decisions.

When the COVID-19 vaccine became available for kids, the father wanted the child to have it while the mother did not. Moreover, the father’s parents declined to have the vaccine, and he refused to allow them to see the child. As a result, the paternal grandparents have sided with the mother, according to the court record.

In his court application to have the child vaccinated, the father noted the child had type 1 diabetes and it put the child at a higher risk of a serious medical condition with COVID-19.

“He described the steps that he had taken to protect himself and the children, when they were in his care, from catching COVID 19. He recounted the medical advice he had received, which recommended that the child be vaccinated,” the court document stated.

According to court documents, the couple has been involved in many disputes since they separated in 2012, causing one Justice to suggest the relationship between the parents was like the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.

In making the decision, Whitmore, Leurer, and Barrington-Foote noted there had been an incident where the father had enforced his will upon the child and the child had reacted badly.

“There was a single incident where the child had raised self-harm as a possibility after experiencing a perceived threat of bodily harm that she associated with the father,” they wrote in the court documents.

The Justices also noted there was the potential for damage to the child’s mental health if the child was to undergo a medical procedure that the child saw as a risk to her bodily integrity, according to a medical expert opinion.

“Dr. Epstein-Gilboa identified a risk of diagnosable longer-term mental health problems. We would emphasize that the Chambers judge recognized Dr. Epstein-Gilboa’s qualifications to offer these opinions.”

In the end, the court determined it was not in the child’s best interest to be vaccinated against the child’s will.

The decision was made on Thursday, Jan. 12.