Supreme Court won't hear case of Alberta patient denied transplant for refusing COVID vaccine
CBC The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the appeal of an Alberta woman who was unwilling to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to get a life-saving organ transplant.
Annette Lewis was diagnosed with a terminal disease in 2018 and was told she would not survive unless she received an organ transplant.
In 2020, she was placed on await list for an Edmonton-based transplant program, but was informed a year later she would need to get the COVID-19 vaccine to receive the organ. Lewis refused to get the vaccine.
Lewis said taking the vaccine would offend her conscience and argued the requirement violated her Charter rights to life, conscience, liberty and security of the person.
"I ought to have the choice about what goes into my body, and a life-saving treatment cannot be denied to me because I chose not to take an experimental treatment for a condition COVID-19 which I do not have and which I may never have," Lewis said in an affidavit previously submitted to court.
