Religious exemptions to vaccination warrants tested in New York case

Thousands of healthcare workers who refused vaccinations lost their jobs statewide when the warrant went into effect, prompting hospitals to cancel elective surgeries and close operating rooms and hospitals. outpatient clinics. Many nursing homes have stopped admitting new patients.

Workers filed several lawsuits last month challenging the mandate before it goes into effect. Seventeen healthcare workers represented by the Thomas More Society, a legal group that defends religious freedom, said being forced to take the vaccine would violate their religious beliefs.

On September 14, U.S. District Judge David Hurd in Utica, NY, issued a restraining order, preventing the state from sanctioning a facility that honored requests for religious exemption. Judge Hurd has said he will rule on whether to convert the temporary restraining order to an injunction by October 12.

Several healthcare workers who requested religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate said they were Christians who believed their bodies were sacred and avoided drug interventions. Others, including the plaintiffs in the Utica case, said they were Christians who opposed abortion and would not take the available Covid-19 vaccines because they were developed from fetal tissue .

Cell lines derived from fetal tissue that were aborted – often decades ago – are commonly used in medical research, including the development and production of the Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States. Fetal cell lines have also played a role in the development of vaccines against diseases such as polio, chickenpox, hepatitis A and shingles.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops of New York said the Vatican has determined that in the absence of ethically flawless Covid-19 vaccines, it is morally acceptable to receive existing Covid-19 vaccines. The spokesperson noted that Pope Francis said: “I believe that morally everyone should be vaccinated. “

The judge’s order did not bind specific employers, and hospital systems have since taken different approaches. Some have fired people who requested a religious exemption, while others have kept them on the payroll, often with additional testing requirements.

The state’s health department said on Wednesday that 7,019 hospital workers and 2,934 nursing home workers had requested non-medical exemptions from the warrant. A spokeswoman declined to comment further, citing the ongoing litigation.

A similar lawsuit in Rhode Island, which also does not allow religious exemptions to its vaccine mandate, is also pending. On September 30, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy rejected a request by several healthcare workers to ban the state’s health department from forcing employers to deny religious exemptions.

The New York mandate applies to more than 665,000 hospital and nursing home employees. When it went into effect on September 27, 92% of staff at these facilities were vaccinated – and state data shows vaccination rates among affected workers have increased faster than the general population since the announcement of the mandate in August.

Christopher Ferrara, attorney for the Thomas More Society, said the state would violate the First Amendment right to religious expression if it allowed a medical exemption, which he called secular, without offering a comparable religious exemption. He cited an April 2021 Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned pandemic-related restrictions on the size of home religious gatherings in California.

Katherine Franke, a professor at Columbia Law School, said the California case is one of many recent Supreme Court decisions that extend protections for religious freedom, and she expects cases arising from the State immunization mandates could set a national precedent.

Ms Franke said the cases questioned how best to balance different constitutional rights and also underscored how concerns about threats to public health have been viewed by the court as secondary to perceived threats to law. religious freedom.

Lawyers for the state argued that the warrant complied with long-standing immunization requirements for healthcare workers that do not allow religious exemptions. Vaccination is an essential tool used to fight the pandemic, and federal courts have upheld vaccination requirements since 1905 as necessary to promote public health, they said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has held firm on the tenure and announced on Tuesday that employees at public facilities for the mentally ill and mentally disabled will face a similar requirement. She also rejected claims by people seeking religious exemption, noting that Catholic leaders in the state supported the vaccination.

“God has answered our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, scientists, doctors, researchers, he made them come up with a vaccine, ”Hochul said Sept. 26 at the Christian Cultural Center, a church in Brooklyn.

Javan Galindez, an assistant physiotherapist at a Queens clinic operated by Northwell Health, said he was a practicing Christian who sought out natural remedies and exercise to stay healthy. He said his request for a religious exemption was rejected by supervisors who cited the state’s mandate.

“Everything that happened left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and maybe later it will lead me to go elsewhere,” he said, referring to other states.

A spokeswoman for Northwell said the system had laid off 1,400 employees who refused to be vaccinated out of a workforce of 77,000. She did not say how many had requested a religious exemption, but said each request was considered through a rigorous review process.

“Northwell has taken a swift and aggressive approach to successfully move towards full immunization compliance while maintaining continuity of care and ensuring that our high level of patient safety is not compromised in any way,” said spokesperson.

Write to Jimmy Vielkind at [email protected]