UN Praises Maldives Bill Outlawing Informed Consent for Pharmaceuticals

Introduction

The parliament of the Republic of Maldives on November 14 passed a bill effectively outlawing the exercise of the right to informed consent, one of the most fundamental ethics in medicine. If ratified, according to multiple Maldives online news sources, the new law would make it illegal for parents to decline certain pharmaceutical products for their children.

Concerningly, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has praised the Maldives legislature for passing the bill, which has been promoted as bringing the country into closer compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The authoritarian bill is being euphemistically called the “Child Rights Protection Bill”. The implicit underlying concept is that children have a “right” to receive certain pharmaceutical products and so parents cannot be allowed to choose for their children not to receive those risk-carrying products.

This framework overlooks the fact that children do not have enough knowledge and understanding to be able to do their own risk-benefit analysis, which is why such decisions must be made for them by their parents until they reach such age as to be able to reasonably make their own choice.

Of course, children won’t be given the choice, either, if news reports are accurate and the bill is ratified into law. Government bureaucrats will be the ones making that decision on children’s behalf, despite having none of the specialized knowledge of the individual child that is possessed by the child’s parents working in consultation with the child’s doctor—knowledge required to be able to conduct the necessary risk-benefit analysis for that individual.

UNICEF is apparently unconcerned with world governments systematically violating the right to informed consent of their citizens. The propagandistic language of children’s rights being used to push this authoritarian agenda serves to mask how the Maldives government is itself claiming to have a “right” to force risk-carrying pharmaceutical products on children against the will of their parents.

In effect, the government will be subjecting every child member of the population to a mass uncontrolled experiment without their informed consent.

In a tweet immediately following its passage, UNICEF described the bill as a “celebration-worthy milestone for the Maldives, as we mark the 30th anniversary of the #CRC.”

The Sun Online, a Maldives media outlet, reported that the bill passed unanimously and “would make it mandatory for parents to vaccinate children and outlaw the option of rejecting vaccinations by the parents.”

The report self-contradictorily added that “The new legislature on child rights protection is designed to remedy the inconsistencies between the current Child Rights Protection Act—enacted in 1991—and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

That report was also published in short form by One Online, another Maldives news site.

The Maldives Independent similarly reported that the parliament had “passed with unanimous consent a new child protection law with provisions to make vaccination mandatory”. Under the law, parents “would not be legally allowed to deny vaccinating their children”. The euphemistic language being used to describe the government’s agenda to forcibly vaccinate children is that they have a “right to care”.

This aspect of the bill is being passed under cover of other provisions intended to bring the country closer in line with the protections under international law for the rights of the child, such as by prohibiting child marriage and criminalizing failure to report child abuse.

While enacting protections for children from some forms of child abuse, however, the government itself would be committing child abuse systematically on a massive scale by forcing upon children risk-carrying pharmaceutical products that can and do cause permanent injury or even death to some children.

“Once ratified,” the Maldives Independent added, “the new law will replace the 1991 child protection law and bring the domestic legal framework in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

But that is not true. On the contrary, the outlawing of informed consent is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and is inconsistent with international law.