Acknowledges moral argument but justifies use of state police power
After drawing attention for saying the state can forcibly "plunge a needle into your arm," noted civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz affirmed his insistence that forced vaccination is constitutional while acknowleding the issue also has a moral dimension.
"I think one can make a plausible argument that nobody should be required to be subject to a dangerous vaccination to help other people," he said in an interview Wednesday with Fox News' Tucker Carlson. "And I think we should continue to debate that."
But the the Harvard Law School emeritus professor left open the door for forced vaccination, saying he wouldn't require someone to take a vaccine "unless it would prove very, very safe."
"In general, if the vaccine is deemed extremely safe, then the state does have a right to compel you to take it," he said.
Dershowitz argued that vaccines work on a theory of mass innoculation.
"You're not taking it to help yourself," he said.
You have a right to die if it's a disease such as cancer that affects only you, he said, but you "don't have a right to be Typhoid Mary."
Carlson pressed him on the premise of a vaccine being safe.
"There is so much lying about vaccines," he said.
See Dershowitz on "Tucker Carlson Tonight":
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