The Supreme Court on Monday declined to stop New York’s coronavirus vaccination mandate for health care workers that does not include an exception for religious objectors.
As it has done in past mandate cases, the court rejected a request from doctors, nurses and other medical workers who said they were being forced to choose between their livelihoods and their faith. They said they should receive a religious exemption because the state’s rule allows one for those who decline the vaccine for medical reasons.
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
As is often the case in requests for emergency relief, the justices in the majority did not give a reason for declining the request to stop the order, which went into effect in November. Last month, the court also denied a similar request from health care workers in Maine.
Supreme Court will not block vaccine rule for Maine workers
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have granted the request.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
Gorsuch released a 14-page dissent, joined by Alito, that criticized New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for rescinding a previous religious exemption. He said his colleagues were making a mistake similar to those in the past that did not adequately protect religious minorities.
“The State’s executive decree clearly interferes with the free exercise of religion — and does so seemingly based on nothing more than fear and anger at those who harbor unpopular religious beliefs,” Gorsuch wrote. “We allow the State to insist on the dismissal of thousands of medical workers — the very same individuals New York has depended on and praised for their service on the pandemic’s front lines over the last 21 months … One can only hope today’s ruling will not be the final chapter in this grim story.”
New York in August announced the vaccine requirement for health care workers, with exceptions both for religious and medical reasons. But eight days later, after the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, New York says its health department narrowed the medical exception and eliminated the one for religious objectors.
Vaccine holdouts in United States military approach 40,000
The workers, represented by the Thomas More Society and Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said the action violated constitutional protections for religious exercise and a federal law that requires accommodations for religious workers.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the order.
“As the Second Circuit found, nothing in this record indicates any hostility to or singling out of religious beliefs that would render the emergency rule nonneutral,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) told the Supreme Court in a brief. “Nor does the availability of a medical exemption undercut the rule’s general applicability. The rule’s medical exemption is tightly constrained in both scope and duration … and it serves rather than undermines the rule’s objective of protecting the health of health care workers.”
Court documents indicated about 96 percent of the state’s health care workers are vaccinated. Of those remaining, far more were claiming a religious objection than a medical exemption.
Story continues below advertisement
The court was considering two challenges to the rvaccine equirement. In the one filed by the 17 objecting workers, all but one are Catholic, and said they objected to the vaccine’s origin from “abortion-derived fetal cell lines in testing, development, or production.”
Barrett won’t block Indiana University vaccine mandate
New York countered that the vaccines do not contain aborted fetal cells.
Advertisement
“HEK-293 cells — which are currently grown in a laboratory and are thousands of generations removed from cells collected from a fetus in 1973 — were used in testing during the research and development phase of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines,” the state’s brief said. “But the use of fetal cell lines for testing is common, including for the rubella vaccination, which New York’s health care workers are already required to take.”
Story continues below advertisement
The state also noted that Pope Francis has called taking an approved coronavirus vaccine “an act of love” and “a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.”
Hochul said at a news conference that “everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.” Her comments that the workers were rejecting “what God wants” was cited by the workers as hostility.
Advertisement
Gorsuch quoted Hochul extensively. “Sometimes dissenting religious beliefs can seem strange and bewildering. In times of crisis, this puzzlement can evolve into fear and anger,” Gorsuch wrote. “It seems Governor Hochul’s thinking has followed this trajectory, and I suspect she is far from alone.”
Story continues below advertisement
The court has three times decided not to stop states from requiring vaccines. Besides the Maine health care workers, Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a request from Indiana University students and Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to halt a New York City mandate for public school teachers. Neither justice provided a reasoning.
The cases are Dr. A. et al v. Hochul and We The Patriots USA v. Hochul.