An Open Letter on Coercive Mandates and Vaccine Passports, by Douglas Farrow

By Douglas Farrow, Crisis Magazine, Aug. 30, 2021

Douglas Farrow is Professor of Theology and Ethics at McGill University in Montreal. He has written frequently in Catholic World Report, First Things, Touchstone and other journals, popular or academic.

[Editor’s Note: The below is an Open Letter from Dr. Douglas Farrow regarding proposed COVID-related mandates and passports specifically in Quebec, Canada, and the letter can serve as a model for other jurisdictions.]

To the Minister of Health:

I wish to record my opposition to coercive vaccine mandates and to vaccine passports. I offer for your own consideration the following reasons:

1. The mandates are incoherent. Either the “vaccines” (which are more accurately described as experimental gene therapy treatments) protect or they do not protect those who have received them. If they do protect, there is nothing to fear but fear itself, which the government has a duty to resist rather than promote. If they don’t protect, they ought not to be forced on others. …