A medical expert believes Health NZ will be reluctant to lose the court case involving the four-month-old baby requiring urgent heart surgery and a blood transfusion as it could provoke vaccine sceptics.
Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand has gone to court after parents refused vaccinated blood for their baby's life-saving surgery.
The parents of the baby want the blood to come from donors who've not had the COVID-19 vaccine.
Health NZ is seeking guardianship of the baby and appeared in court on Wednesday, along with their parents, for a preliminary hearing. The hearing was met by a gathering of around 100 protesters outside the High Court in Auckland.
Medical Ethics professor Tim Dare told AM on Thursday the default position is for parents to have the right to give consent but there are exceptions.
"The basic limit is that our freedoms are all limited by the possibility that we might harm other people. So I can basically run my life as I wish, provided I don't harm another person," Dare told AM co-host Ryan Bridge.
"In this case, the other person is the child and so the state has the right, in a small range of cases, to step in where parents' decisions threaten the interests of the child very clearly and dramatically."
The couple says they have their own donors lined up, who they've "screened", but doctors insisted on using blood from the NZ Blood Service.
Dare said he's sure the court would consider that argument from the parents but feels the hospitals will be very reluctant to lose this case.
"It's rather unfortunate this is all being fought out in the public gauge. In fact, what would normally happen and I'm sure what's been going on behind the scenes is that the hospital will talk to the parents trying to find a way around," he said.
"Unfortunately, we've got ourselves in the situation now where the hospitals will be reluctant to lose this case because there's no question that the vaccine sceptics if the court gives the right to the parents, will think, oh, we were right about the danger of the vaccines."
Bridge questioned if the court can worry about the social implications of the decision but Dare disagreed.
"Well, that's a relevant consideration but I think essentially what's likely to happen is that the court will stay out of the science. They will say we accept completely the mainstream medical view about transfusion," he told AM.
"Most of the parents' views about the transfusion look unreliable. No one should doubt these parents are doing the best thing for their kids … but the court will essentially, I suspect side with the doctors on the science and then the question will be, well, can you still respect the parents' view without being seen to endorse the content of their view."
Dare said there have been cases in the past where the state has lost and the parents have won.
"Often it'll turn on uncertainty about the effectiveness of treatment. So taking the parents out of the loop is a significant step and the courts will be reluctant to do this," he said.
"The hospital will be working furiously to find a solution to this case, so they are not going to want to involve the courts if they can avoid it."
Watch the full interview with Tim Dare above.
