When COVID comes to family court

The National Post reports on several Canadian family law cases in which parents fought over whether their children should be vaccinated against COVID-19. TL;DR: it hasn’t gone well for anti-vaxxers.

In a pandemic, conflict about vaccinating children can be “significantly polarizing,” according to a judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta.

That is especially true when the opposing parties are parents with shared custody asking a court to break their deadlock.

The Alberta judge’s mid-December decision to let a mother vaccinate her two children without the consent of their anti-vaccine father illustrates what has become the usual judicial response.

One parent wants to vaccinate their child in a pandemic. The other denies the pandemic even exists. One parent follows provincial public health advice. The other claims pandemic information from the government is propaganda, and demands to put the pandemic on trial.

It is becoming a common conflict, in which Canadian judges have recently co…