Famed attorney tries backpedaling support for forced vaccinations
Renowned attorney Alan Dershowitz Friday tried backpedaling comments he made in May 2020 supporting forced vaccinations.
“Let me put it very clearly: You have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. 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,” Dershowitz told Crowdsource the Truth’s Jason Goodman in a May 2020 interview.
The former Harvard Law professor said, “[T]he state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm if the vaccination is designed to prevent the spreading of the disease.”
When Goodman asked Dershowitz about the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic and noted that there are plenty of doctors who disagree with the mandates, the lawyer replied that mandates are decided by public majority.
“But that’s what a democracy is about,” said Dershowitz. “And if the majority of the people agree and support that for public health measures you have to be vaccinated, you have to be vaccinated.”
He said that people should be either vaccinated or locked down. “Don’t get vaccinated but never, ever leave your home, or live in a bubble.”
The attorney added that mandates are imposed by legislatures, not doctors. Goodman said he was troubled by the fact that it looked like the country was headed towards a mandate, and Dershowitz said he hoped it was.
“I’m troubled by the legality of what you’re suggesting because it seems like we’re very close to a government mandate that we must all be vaccinated,” said Goodman.
“I hope we are. I hope we are,” responded Dershowitz. “I would like to see a government mandate. If a safe vaccine is developed for COVID-19 I hope it’s mandated and I will defend it and we’ll argue that in the Supreme Court of the United States against your views.”
But in an interview Friday with comedian Alex Stein, Dershowitz tried walking back his remarks.
“I don’t believe in mandatory vaccination now,” Dershowitz claimed. “What I said was if there came a time when we had a real pandemic and there was a perfect vaccine that there would be no constitutional right for somebody to say no I'm going to spread the disease and I’m going to be Typhoid Mary.
“The government, under a Supreme Court decision in 1905, would have the power to compel vaccination. We're not even close to that situation today, so I'm not in favor of compelled vaccination at all today.”
Dershowitz then expressed his own doubt about the vaccines, saying that he received all the shots and still contracted COVID.
“I've had the Pfizer all of them plus the booster and tragically, after years of not having COVID, I came back from a trip, a long airplane ride, and went to a Christmas party which I probably shouldn't have, wore a mask and did get COVID and had a pretty bad case of it for three weeks but I’m better now.”
