Enlarge image
Vaccination center in Düsseldorf: duty to justify spades?
(Symbol image)
Photo: Federico Gambarini / dpa
Politicians had long rejected a general compulsory vaccination against Covid-19, now the designated Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to initiate a corresponding legislative procedure "promptly".
According to several surveys, the majority of the population supports this initiative.
FDP leader Christian Lindner has called on his party to debate the issue.
He indicated that he could move away from his previously negative attitude on the question of the general compulsory vaccination.
"However, various arguments and the low willingness to vaccinate made me thoughtful," he said and emphasized at the same time: "This debate is sensitive for our society, because it can lead to divisions, because it is a very personal ethical consideration."
That is why a thorough debate is necessary.
The Bundestag is to decide in the coming weeks on compulsory corona vaccination.
According to Olaf Scholz's wish, every member should be able to "vote according to their conscience".
The compulsory vaccination should then come into force by the beginning of March at the latest.
Lindner supported the proposal to lift the parliamentary group's obligation to vote.
Rostalski: Compulsory vaccination for under 60-year-olds not justified
There are strong doubts about the introduction of a general compulsory vaccination from the ranks of the German Ethics Council.
"Compulsory vaccination for those who do not show an increased risk of ending up in the intensive care unit with Covid-19 cannot generally be justified in my opinion," said the legal scientist Frauke Rostalski, member of the German Ethics Council, the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" .
There is also the question of whether the German state "really had already taken all the instruments in hand" before resorting to mandatory vaccination, according to the lawyer.
"And I would say: No."
more on the subject
Political Failure in the Pandemic: Cowardice Before the People An essay by Ullrich Fichtner
How I Tried to Understand a Vaccine Opponent: Vincent's WorldBy Carolina Torres
Discussions about corona measures: Germans need unvaccinated people.
How They Can Be MoralAn essay by Peter Maxwill
Concerns about a general compulsory vaccination are an expression of a feeling "that the state is going too far."
To defend oneself against such an obligation corresponds to a deep conviction of the law and its validity.
However, it looks different with the over 60-year-olds, said Rostalski.
According to the register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi), 84 percent of Covid patients in the intensive care unit are older than 50 years, 63 percent are older than 60 years.
"Then it becomes obvious that it is precisely these people that must be protected in order to avoid overloading the health system."
According to a survey by the opinion research institute INSA for »Bild am Sonntag«, 63 percent of people in Germany who have not yet had their vaccinations do not want to do so in the future either.
20 percent said they would still want to be vaccinated, 17 percent answered with "don't know / no answer".
INSA interviewed more than 1,000 people on December 3rd.
On Saturday, several thousand so-called vaccine skeptics and so-called lateral thinkers demonstrated against the corona measures at smaller and larger demos in several German cities, some illegally.
In Austria, according to the police in Vienna, more than 40,000 people took part in protests on Saturday, sometimes in a heated mood.
Their outrage was directed in particular against the general compulsory vaccination that Austria wants to introduce in February.
Several politicians warn against radicalization of those who oppose vaccination
The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, Thomas Strobl (CDU), had previously warned against radicalization of the corona protests because of the planned vaccination requirement.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution assumes that "compulsory vaccinations reinforce the aggressive attitude of the lateral thinker movement," Strobl told the Funke media group.
"The lateral thinking movement is dangerous for our free democracy, and it is becoming even more dangerous."
The outgoing Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also fears further radicalization of the so-called lateral thinkers: "We have to be aware that compulsory vaccination against Corona can lead to reactions in the population," said the Interior Minister. "We see it with the emergence of the so-called lateral thinkers movement, which turn against the Corona protective measures and are now in the focus of the protection of the constitution."
Seehofer also referred to the torch march of around 30 opponents of the Corona policy, apparently members and sympathizers of the right-wing extremist organization "Free Saxony", on Friday evening in front of the home of Saxony's Health Minister Petra Köpping (SPD).
He told Bild am Sonntag that this was not a legitimate protest.
"This torchlight procession is organized intimidation of a state representative." That reminds him of the "darkest chapters of our German history".
more on the subject
Against corona policy: Protests in several German cities
Reactions to the right march in Saxony: "Torch protests in front of my house are disgusting and indecent"
Grimma in Saxony: Torchlight protest in front of the home of Health Minister Köpping
Norbert Röttgen, who is applying for the CDU chairmanship, however, argued that opponents of vaccinations and boycotters of protective measures are a greater challenge for the cohesion of society than state measures such as mandatory vaccination.
"The split in that it is still left to a minority to trigger a huge wave of infections that affects and restricts the entire population, weighs much more heavily," he told the editorial network Germany.
Self-protection is not enough as the sole reason
From a legal point of view, Röttgen considers the mandatory vaccination to be tenable.
"In the trade-off between the not insignificant severity of the interference and weighing up the damage for society, it is clearly justifiable under constitutional law," he told the RND.
"The non-vaccination results in so much illness and death." He himself will vote in the Bundestag vote for a general vaccination against corona, said the CDU politician.
The vaccination rate is too low and the social acceptance of mandatory vaccination has increased.
"That also led me to rethink." In addition, "due to the gigantic number of vaccinations worldwide, there is sufficient data to prove the safety of the vaccination."
From the point of view of the Potsdam lawyer Thorsten Ingo Schmidt, there are no legal concerns.
Such a rule is compatible with the Basic Law.
It intervenes in the physical integrity, the right to self-determination and possibly also in religious freedom.
But: "From the point of view of external protection and the protection of the health system from overloading, an obligation to vaccinate would be justified," said the professor of public law at the University of Potsdam.
"That applies provided that there is enough vaccine, the vaccine is effective and the side effects are acceptable for the individual," said Schmidt.
He pointed out that the Federal Administrative Court had classified compulsory smallpox vaccination in 1959 as constitutional.
In the opinion of the lawyer, self-protection as the sole justification is not sufficient for compulsory vaccination.
"The protection of third parties depends on how infectious people are still vaccinated," he said.
"A vaccination is at least suitable to avoid the risk of infection for others." This also included children who could not be vaccinated, as well as those in need of care.
Looking at the burden on hospitals, he said a patient with Covid-19 disease may take a place away from other patients in the hospital who have other serious illnesses.
Fok / dpa