Last Updated on December 10, 2022
A video which went viral on Friday showed that law enforcement authorities in New Zealand forcibly removed a six-month old baby in front of his mother after the New Zealand Health Service denied the parents the ability to choose an unvaccinated donor for their child’s heart surgery.
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” the mother asked. “Don’t do that, boys,” said a man present who appeared to the baby’s father.
“You guys are criminals. You are conducting a criminal act here,” he said. “We’ve been talking to you like rational people. You guys are acting like criminals! All of you are criminals!
“Oh my gosh, how can you do this?” the baby’s mother cried in exasperation.
“Get out of my way!” the woman pleaded as the police officers physically restrained her from approaching her child.
New Zealand takes custody of baby whose parents refused vaccinated blood pic.twitter.com/PmNwjgw8yO
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(@ClownWorld_) December 9, 2022
“We need to take him,” the nurse told the distraught mother. “You will be able to see him after the surgery.”
“You guys are going to be recorded in the annals of time as criminals who come in and take babies from their mother,” the man told the authorities. “You can’t just take my baby like that!” the mother cried.
The ruling was made by Justice Ian Gault on Wednesday that the child remain “under the court’s guardianship” until he recovered from surgery. The decision came after the New Zealand Health Service submitted an application in November for a court-appointed doctor to take “guardianship” of the baby under the Care of Children Act.
The parents previously requested that the New Zealand Blood Service take a donation from a donor chosen by the family, however, the agency refused to do so and stated that it does not distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated donors.
The interim director of the New Zealand Health Service’s Auckland office, Dr. Mike Shepherd, stated the decisions were “always made with the best interests of the child in mind.”
“We acknowledge the decision made by the court, following our application in relation to the baby’s surgery and recognize this is a difficult situation for all involved,” Shepherd said.
Dr. Kirsten Finucane, chief pediatric cardiac surgeon at Starship Hospital in Auckland, told the parents it is “simply impractical to have a directed donor.”
The baby has a heart condition called pulmonary valve stenosis.
Some 150 protesters expressed support for the parents of the baby on Tuesday in a demonstration outside the Auckland courthouse.
The post of the kidnapping has since received strong reactions from Internet denizens who witnessed the video. “Straight up evil that needs to be completely destroyed. There is no moving past what these people have done to all of us,” Boston Ace said in a reaction post on Twitter. “May God have mercy, because I have none.”