Alberta, Canada – A judge ruled that a patient who was refused organ transplants due to the fact that she had never been vaccinated against coronavirus was not in violation of her rights.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Paul Belzil found in favor of Edmonton, Alberta against the woman Annette Lewis, and ruled that she was not a victim of discrimination when she was denied an organ transplant because of her vaccination history.
Justice Belzil says that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't influence the medical decisions of doctors about organ transplants. But Ms. Lewis was diagnosed by doctors as having the greatest chances of surviving a degenerative disease, the broadcaster CBC reports.
Lewis had been identified with illness by doctors in the year 2018. She was advised to receive vaccines by 2020. But she was unable to get the Wuhan coronavirus shot. In the absence of the vaccine she'd not be able to get the potentially life-saving transplant.
Lewis declared, “Taking this vaccine offends my conscience” and added “I ought not to have the choice about how my body is treated and a life-saving treatment can not be denied to me because I chose to not take an experimental treatment for COVID-19 — which is a condition I don't have and may never have.”
Justice Bezil acknowledged that Lewis was the sole judge of the things Lewis did to her body, however, he said that nobody is entitled to organ donation.
He stated, “The notion that physicians would have to exercise clinical judgment in order to be treated under the charter would lead to medical chaos and patients would seek endless judicial review of their treatment decisions.”
It's not the first instance of a court case that has involved the rights of unvaccinated Canadians in recent times. One father has been denied access to his child in Quebec in the province where he resided alongside his child. The judge had decided that he could not visit his daughter due to the vaccinations he had not received.
Superior Court Judge Jean-Sebastien Vaillancourt stated in his decision that it was in the best interest of the child to not speak with his father. But the contact with him will not be in the best interests in the event that he's not vaccinated or is opposed to hygiene measures in the current environment of epidemiology.
Similar rulings were issued by the judge Nathalie Godbout at the February Court of Queen's Bench, temporarily depriving custody of a father to his children. He was also not vaccinated.
Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister, has defended vaccination mandates as well as other restrictive measures. He told a news conference earlier this week that “it was their choice, and nobody ever was going force anyone to do something they don't want to.”
There are consequences if you choose not. Your coworkers do not have your back to be at risk. He advised that you shouldn't put your colleagues at risk by allowing them to sit right next to them in an airplane.”
