The individual loses his unconditional claim to integrity

[Skybird]

This piece is from and about Switzerland, something that I see happening in Germany with the greatets naturalness, too. Even the mentioned topic of organ donations was attempted to be enforced the way it is described for Switzerland. Sate incraisn gly claims property irghts over the indkiovidual citizen, and not agreeing with the officla opinion dogma becomes a subverisver act oujtlawing the individual and expsoing it to masisve social and medial sanctionising. Not just with organ donations, but by now practially on every topic. "Deviant opinions" even can make you a target for attempts to criminalise you. The consensus becomes civil dut ynumber one for every citizen, giving the impression of voluntariness, but in fact being pure authoritarianism.

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:


The relationship between the state and the individual is changing in a dangerous way: benefit increasingly takes priority over human dignity.

The individual loses his unconditional claim to integrity and is instrumentalized by state coercive measures. This can be seen in the corona policy and in questions about organ donation. The rule of law is challenged.

In Switzerland, any interference with the physical and mental integrity of a person is considered to be bodily harm and thus damage. Violations of privacy also affect social integrity. This is the case even if it could save the person's life. Therefore, all medical measures are subject to consent, unless in urgent situations it can be assumed that assistance is in accordance with the will of the person concerned. In addition, in the case of medical measures, those affected or, in the case of incapacity, their representative must be informed and be able to consent voluntarily. The right to physical integrity applies even after death, which is why autopsies also need a justification.

The right to physical, psychological and social integrity is justified in the Swiss constitution with the indispensable claim to dignity of every person (Article 7 BV). This cannot be forfeited. For example, serious criminals may not be treated medically against their will. The claim to dignity establishes the claim of every person to autonomy and integrity (Article 10 BV), which is the common thread running through all laws in Switzerland as a defense right of every person and is intended to protect the individual from being instrumentalized. It also forms the core of the Charter of Human Rights, which was adopted after the Second World War on December 10, 1948 as a result of the experience of the atrocities of the Second World War.

Since then, the guarantee of human dignity and human rights has been an indispensable prerequisite for a constitutional state. It was also anchored globally as a basic ethical claim in the form of international law. The violation of human dignity and human rights has the greatest ethical depth of intervention. The fact that this still happens every day does not change the validity of the claim.

Political decision-making and action must therefore be based on the paradigm “dignity over human benefit”.

The approval of the Council of States in September 2021 to introduce the regulation of an extended contradiction in organ removal is an example of such a paradigm shift. Anyone who does not want to donate organs must actively announce this. With the proposed regulation of the extended objection, relatives are only allowed to veto an organ removal if they can prove that a patient did not want to release his or her organs.

Having organs removed would no longer be a personal concession with the extended objection regulation, but society would in principle have a right to do so. Consent to the removal of organs would become a moral duty of the individual and would lose the character of a donation. There is also the question of what should happen to people who have never been able to judge, such as those with severe congenital intellectual disabilities. The presumed will of people without relatives would no longer be recorded at all. In the case of organ removal without reliable knowledge of the patient's will, it is accepted that organs will be removed from people who might not have wanted it.

The individual rights of defense of the individual in the case of organ removal in favor of the health benefit of many are relativized with the objection regulation. The state is no longer responsible for protecting the integrity of the individual; instead, the individual must now actively claim its integrity claim towards the state and society. If this is not possible or if you have no relatives to represent you, you are unlucky. Whether a human rights violation occurs with every organ removal without consent after brain death depends on the respective assessment of the moral status of the brain-dead person.

Even if you no longer judge him as a person, but only as a corpse, the state is at least committing an infringement of property. In any case, the possibility remains ethically objectionable to prepare those who are already incapacitated for organ removal in the intensive care unit before cardiovascular arrest and brain death if they are still undoubtedly in possession of their personal rights. With the regulation of a narrow or extended contradiction, a change would take place in transplant medicine from the previous rule of law “dignity before human benefit” to “benefit before human dignity”. The same can be seen in the fight against pandemics.

In view of exceptional health risks, measures to combat pandemics place the protection of the population over the claim of everyone to integrity and individual decision-making. Fundamental rights are also suspended. The respective pandemic measures are ethically justifiable as long as there are no other ways to protect the physical integrity of the population from a serious threat of disease and death.

If the entire population is equally affected, the pandemic measures must also be designed in the same way for everyone, otherwise they must be differentiated. This is also required by the Swiss Epidemics Act, which, for example, does not contain a general vaccination requirement, but only one aimed at specific population groups. However, the state does not currently differentiate the pandemic measures with regard to the risk potential of certain population groups, although the mortality and morbidity risk is very different. Instead, the basic rights are granted or withheld based on individual behavior with regard to willingness to be vaccinated and tested.

This raises the question of how proportionate individual restrictions on fundamental rights are for the population as a whole. The fee-based certificate requirement at primary educational institutions z. B. violates the fairness of access for financially disadvantaged young people who have a low risk of serious illness. In general, financially disadvantaged population groups are denied the option between vaccination and testing. This is an indirect compulsory vaccination, that is, a forced bodily harm.

Since all those who want to be vaccinated have and still have the opportunity to do so, the question arises whether even people with a high risk of illness and death for Covid 19 disease can voluntarily decide for or against pandemic measures should. Only if there is a high risk that their behavior could lead to an overload of the hospitals are fundamental rights restrictions appropriate for them. This is because patients are endangered by undersupply and the staff by overload and moral stress. Compulsory certification and testing for people with particular vulnerability to Covid 19 disease can therefore be viewed as a differentiated and proportionate coercive measure if the available medical resources are insufficient.
Compulsory measures among health workers more than questionable

To what extent coercive measures against health workers are proportionate and politically wise is more than questionable in view of the serious shortage of doctors and nurses. At present, those compulsory measures to cope with pandemics that affect the entire population and do not take into account the different risks of illness and death of individual population groups are not covered by the Pandemic Act.

As with the planned objection regulation for organ removal, the state accepts physical, psychological and social violations of fundamental rights. In general, the individual must perform certain activities in order to be able to participate in social activities. Fundamental rights therefore no longer apply unconditionally. In the case of pandemic measures, the paradigm shift "Benefit over human dignity" is emerging in government action.

Something similar can be observed with data protection, especially when dealing with health data. The fact that the state and companies are allowed to know the vaccination status violates the protection of privacy.

The trends shown indicate a changing relationship between the state and people's claim to integrity in society. There is a gradual change from the dignity to the utility paradigm. In the process, the individual loses his unconditional claim to integrity and is instrumentalized by state measures.

If the utility paradigm prevails, the associated social upheavals for the individual and society would hardly be foreseeable. If Switzerland is to remain a constitutional state in the future, all political decisions and actions must be accounted for against individual claims to human dignity and human rights. Restrictions on the fundamental rights to health protection and the promotion of public health must therefore be constitutional, democratically legitimized, differentiated, proportionate and also evidence-based.

https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/corona...rde-ld.1648698



We become more and more like China.