NY Bill Would Give Children The Right To Consent To Vaccines

NY Bill Would Give Children The Right To Consent To Vaccines








New York’s A343[1] and S384, if enacted into law, will give children the right to consent to HPV and Hep B vaccines,
without the knowledge and consent of their parents. Regardless of your
position on vaccines, these bills set a disturbing precedent in
violation of the U.S. Constitution—child consent to medical treatment.
If you live in New York, take or send the Legal Memorandum at http://www.vaccinerights.com/legislativeprojects.html to your state representatives, along with any other concerns you may about these bills.

As a starting place, constituents are "one person with one vote." If
your position is one held by a minority of constituents who are opposed
by big pharma, which is the case with vaccine freedom-of-choice
positions, legislative activism is an up-hill battle. Ultimately,
legislatures can enact any law they have the votes for, Constitutional
or not.

But if you can tell your representative that they "can’t enact into law
these bills because they are unconstitutional and violate state and
federal law," and provide them with a formal legal analysis supporting
that assertion, you have just leveraged your "one person, one vote"
status. A loud minority can sometimes influence legislation as well, but
strong legal arguments can add volume to your position in any event.

Here’s a summary of some of the legal and other problems with NY’s A343
and S384 found in the Legal Memorandum posted on the Vaccine Rights
website:

1. They are unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has
stated: "Most children, even in adolescence, simply are not able to make
sound judgments concerning many decisions, including their need for
medical care or treatment. Parents can and must make those
judgments."[2] Taking medical decision-making authority over children
away from their parents and giving it to anyone—let alone,
children—violates the parents' 14^th Amendment Constitutional due process right to parent their children.

2. These bills violate parents’ First Amendment "free exercise"
of religion, since parents, and not children, have the legal authority
to exercise a vaccine religious exemption for their children under
N.Y. Pub. Health Law § 2164(9). They also violate the State
Constitution’s religious liberty section, which also supports NY
parents’ right to refuse vaccines for their children for religious
reasons.[3]

3. These bills violate the National Vaccine Injury Compensation
Program, which requires "each healthcare provider who administers a
vaccine" to "provide to the legal representatives of any child" a copy
of information "prior to the administration of the vaccine."[4] A child
can’t consent to the administration of a vaccine without the parent’s
knowledge and consent if the person administering the vaccine must
first give the parent vaccine information.

If a healthcare provider administers a vaccine to a child without first
giving the required information to parents, the provider is violating
federal law, and probably state ethical rules as well, thereby
subjecting the provider to discipline by the state medical, nursing, or
other applicable board.

4. States are not without the right to provide for healthcare
to children without parental consent absolutely. In emergencies,
doctors may treat minors without consulting parents first. But absent an
emergency, there is no need for intervention prior to consulting the
parent. And in those non-emergency situations where parents are
neglecting their child’s medical needs, the state can take custody and
provide parental authority for medical treatment.

So, there is no need for the state to give authority to children to
consent to their own medical care. Children generally, by definition,
are neither developmentally ready nor legally competent to make those
decisions. In limited situations, older children may become emancipated
and obtain the legal right to make medical decisions for themselves,
but absent emancipation or an emergency, it’s not a legal option, nor
should it be, for reasons consistent with common sense and the law.

5. Like legislators in other states, New York State legislators
take an oath to "support the constitution of the United States, and
the constitution of the State of New York" before performing the duties
of their offices. Since A343 and S384 violate the U.S. and New York
Constitutions as explained above, legislators would be violating their
oath if they voted for these bills.

6. Finally, these bills do not explain how a healthcare
provider is to determine whether or not a child "has the capacity to
consent to the care," as stated in these bills. Who gets to decide that?
On the basis of what criteria? Subject to what supervision or
scrutiny? These are questions that require a combination of therapeutic
and legal expertise to answer. Few healthcare providers are qualified
to make such an assessment in any situation, but even less so in the
hurried, profiteering environments in which most of them work.
Other states have enacted laws allowing children to consent to
vaccines—most notably, CA and NC, but these laws are subject to court
challenges that could result in these laws being stricken. Efforts are
already underway to explore a possible challenge to these laws in court
or to seek their repeal.


Source:-
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/ny-bill-would-give-children-right-consent-vaccines