The failure of Judge Alejandro Recarey for which vaccination in minors was suspended until the contracts with Pfizer are fully presented, called the inoculation campaign against covid-19 “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.
This despite the fact that vaccination in Uruguay is not mandatory.
In his sentence, which was branded by the government as “legal nonsense”, the magistrate argues that “it is crystal clear” that “the defense of non-compulsory” is not enough to protect vaccination in minors.
As a basis, Recarey points out in the first place that the “lack of information” about vaccines means that those responsible for minors cannot fully decide whether it is reasonable to vaccinate them or not.
“The state offers a vaccine that may or may not be safe and effective. So in the context of misinformation the rights of both, older and younger, are being harmed. Obviously those of the minor, with respect to which it is not known what substance is being supplied. Nor with what consequences. But equally those of his protector, who, in similar ignorance, is not in a position to know if he is doing right or wrong by vaccinating the minor or not doing it.“, says the judge.
“Whether it’s protecting you in every hypothesis or not. In other words, a father, a mother, a grandparent or a guardian may be wrong if they do not vaccinate him (if the vaccine is ultimately good). Or they may be violating your right if they make you inject, if the vaccine is harmful. It is that they do not have under their eyes all the pertinent elements of judgment as for the proper exercise of their right-duty of health care of minors“, Add.
The judge even maintains that “in a certain way, the mere non-compulsory offer of vaccination is in this case more harmful to the rights of the elderly than the obligation”, since “It leaves the decision totally in the hands of the individual, while immersing him in the dark” and “in ignorance of the panorama on which he is called to act as the most responsible”. “To put it more illustratively, in the sphere of health (as in all), parents have as much right to the truth as their children. And more. Because they are the ones who decide for them,” he points out.
Later, Recarey goes a step further and says that “even respecting the self-determination and freedom of each parent, the best interests of each child must prevail (art. 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child), being necessary keep in mind, at no time, that we are not dealing with a scientifically approved medical prescription, but rather with an experimentwhich not because of its colossal magnitude ceases to be what it is: an experiment”.
He immediately concludes –on his own account– that the non-compulsory nature “is evidence by itself of the scientific weakness of the vaccination proposal”.
Why? According to the judge’s arguments, “If its scientific nature (that of vaccination) were extremely solid, in good logic a responsible government would have imposed it compulsively”.
“Then, with more reason, it cannot be presented as a campaign of voluntary acceptance and, above all, uninformed. Less about minors. To maintain the contrary is equivalent to expressing a kind of dystopian right of the state to promote -with deception- the use of people as experimental subjects. Plain. You can’t tell him any other way. And with deceit, as long as the vaccinee is not expressly told that he is being subjected to a kind of massive technical test. No to a scientifically approved treatment. Confirmed with the necessary reasonableness. No. But to an experiment,” she adds.
“Using a metaphor, give the vaccination in progress the seal –that is, the seal– of legality, just because it is optional, would be the same as allowing a merchant to sell food without food control, only on the basis that no one is obliged to buy. Which amounts to nonsense. All these precisions that are valid both for the State that designs a health policy, and for the holders of parental authority (or guardians). Since the legal representatives of minors can only have their right to life (in their health aspect, for that matter), in order to achieve a concrete health improvement and absolutely free of risks for the child. Which does not appear safe at all today in Uruguay, “says the ruling.
