A baby needs heart surgery to survive. But the parents only want blood from unvaccinated people to be used. The case makes waves in New Zealand and is finally decided in court.
In New Zealand, parents have temporarily relinquished partial custody of their four-month-old baby to allow for medical treatment. The infant named in the court documents "Baby W." is called, suffers from a severe pulmonary valve stenosis, a heart valve disease and needs an operation.
The parents agreed to the surgery in principle, but made it a condition that their son only received blood from donors who had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The family's lawyer justified this with concerns that the blood could contain traces of vaccines with mRNA technology.
However, the New Zealand Health Service turned down a request from the family to use blood from unvaccinated volunteers. The country's blood transfusion service makes no distinction between donations from the vaccinated or unvaccinated. The reason given is that the blood of vaccinated people does not pose an additional risk.
New Zealand Health Authority spokesman Mike Shepherd said it was a "difficult situation for everyone involved". The decision to submit such an application to the court is always made "with regard to the best interests of the child".
The High Court eventually ruled that the overriding issue was whether the operation was in the child's "best interests". This was answered unequivocally in the affirmative. Judge Ian Gault then ordered the boy to be placed under the guardianship of the court "from the date of the order until the completion of the operation and subsequent recovery".
For all other matters, the parents remain entitled to custody. In addition, they would be regularly informed about the course of the treatment and the condition of the baby, the judgment said. The boy is being treated at Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland.
The case had brought the rather small group of opponents of vaccination in New Zealand onto the scene. About 150 of them demonstrated outside the courthouse to support the baby's parents. dr Philip Joseph, a lecturer in constitutional law at New Zealand's University of Canterbury, told Britain's BBC that the court's decision was inevitable given the circumstances. Even the parents' right to freedom of belief must give way to the right to life, according to the expert. He pointed to numerous precedents in which parents who are Jehovah's Witnesses have been forced to allow their children to receive blood transfusions in life-threatening situations.
