Should your children be vaccinated or not? Parents are increasingly arguing about this issue, see Dutch lawyers. At least a quarter of divorce lawyers have ever dealt with a conflict where parents disagreed about vaccinating children, and in nine cases it even led to a lawsuit.
This is apparent from a study by the Dutch Association of Family and Inheritance Lawyers Divorce Mediators (vFAS) and current affairs program One today in which 316 lawyers participated.
Nearly a third of the lawyers surveyed received questions from parents who could not agree on vaccinating the children. 27 percent of the lawyers have already provided some form of mediation in this type of conflict.
Consent of both parents to vaccinate
Both parents must give permission in the Netherlands for the medical treatment of their child, and this also applies to vaccinations. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, vaccinating children has become a bigger problem. The possibility that children between 5 and 12 years old can be vaccinated against corona is increasing the number of conflicts between parents. 45 percent of the lawyers affiliated with the vFAS say they have to deal with this.
But according to the vFas, the conflicts do not only take place between (divorced) parents. The research data shows that arguments about vaccination between the children themselves and their parents are also more common. And the fights are often not just about whether or not to vaccinate. There are also regular conflicts about whether or not to have children tested.
Judge follows Health Council advice
Should the conflict become so high that a judge has to be involved, it is expected that they will rule that vaccination or testing is necessary. “In previous lawsuits about vaccination against measles, polio or rubella you saw that judges followed the Health Council. I expect that they will do that again with corona,” says family law teacher at Utrecht University Joost Huijer One today.
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Arguments about whether or not to vaccinate children more often lead to lawsuits