A top lawyer who defended President Trump during his Senate impeachment trial believes the Constitution grants the government “power” to vaccinate citizens against their will.
Speaking with Crowdsource the Truth host Jason Goodman over the weekend, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz said the public’s safety outweighs any private liberty concerns of U.S. citizens who do not wish to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.
“Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread disease, even if you disagree,” he said. “You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business.”
Goodman interjected to clarify whether Dershowitz was saying the federal government has the ability to mandate vaccinations for all citizens.
“Absolutely,” Dershowitz replied. “And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”
The lawyer said that U.S. residents don’t have a right to infect others and that if they wish to opt-out of vaccination, they could be given an alternative in which people rejecting the state mandate could remain in their homes permanently so as not to risk infecting others.
“That’s what a democracy is about,” he said. “If the majority of the people agree and support that, for public health measures, you have to be vaccinated, you have to be vaccinated. They should give you an alternative. The alternative is to live in your home, don’t get vaccinated, but never ever leave your home or live in a bubble. But if you want to interact with other people, you cannot become Typhoid Mary. The Constitution doesn’t give you the right to spread your illness to other people.”
Dershowitz argued that healthcare workers and officials forcibly vaccinating the public through a legislative and judicial process that comes to a consensus on widespread vaccination is the best defense against the spread of disease.
On Friday, President Trump announced, “Operation Warp Speed,” which, in part, created a vaccination initiative with a stated “goal” of producing 300 million coronavirus vaccines by January 2021.
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