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New York Attorney General Letitia James urged the Supreme Court Wednesday to deny a request from a group of New York health care workers to block the state's vaccine mandate, arguing that the emergency rule requiring vaccinations for certain health care workers is necessary to combat the spread of the virus, which can lead to a "vicious cycle of staff shortages and deterioration of patient care."
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| Vaccine Covid-19 |
James' filing was in
response to a lawsuit brought by three nurses and a group called We the
Patriots USA, Inc., who object to the fact that while the mandate allows
exemptions for those with medical objections, there is no exemption for people
with religious objections.
It's the latest dispute
concerning the various types of mandates to reach the high court, and it is
nearly identical to recent cases brought by workers in Maine. The court has yet
to block a mandate, although the Maine mandate went into effect over the
objection of three conservative justices.
The nurses say they
object to the vaccines because of their distant relation to fetal cell lines
developed from abortions in the 1970s and 1980s. The Vatican's Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith said last December in a note approved by Pope Francis
that receiving the shot was morally permitted.
"It is morally
acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted
fetuses in their research and production process," the Vatican note said.
The nurses say they are "devout Christians" who "object to
deriving any benefit -- no matter how remote -- from a process involving
abortion."
In briefs Wednesday,
James said that the vaccines do not contain aborted fetal cells. She said that
some cell lines "which are currently grown in a laboratory and are
thousands of generations removed from cells collected from a fetus in
1973" were used in the "testing during the research and development
phase of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines." She added that the use of fetal
cell lines for testing is "common" including for the Rubella
vaccination.
She said that the
"narrow grounds" for an exemption based on medical issues is
"largely temporary," such as a "severe or immediate allergic
reaction" after a previous dose of the vaccine, and added that in the
nursing home sector 88.7% of workers are fully vaccinated.
New York's mandate
requires all state health care workers to receive the vaccine and allows an
exemption only for those with medical objections.
A lawyer for the nurses
said the mandate violates the First Amendment because it requires employers to
terminate health care workers who refuse the vaccine because of their religious
beliefs, but offers an exemption to those workers who refused based on medical
objections.
Last month, when the
Supreme Court denied a request to block the Maine rule, the court's right wing
-- Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito -- dissented and
said they would have halted the mandate while the appeals process plays out.
Writing for his two
conservative colleagues, Gorsuch pointed to the fact that "unlike
comparable rules in most states," Maine's rule contained no exemption for
those whose "sincerely held religious beliefs preclude them from accepting
the vaccine."
He said that workers
"who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months,
are now being fired and their practices shuttered," all for "adhering
to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs." He added:
"Their plight is worthy of our attention."
Sources: cnn.com
