Judge block New York vaccine mandate for healthcare workers
on September 15, 2021
A federal judge has temporarily blocked New York from requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated for COVID-19.
New York added a required mandate for healthcare workers on Aug. 28.
“The plaintiffs, who included physicians and nurses, claimed that because the New York Department of Health allowed no exemptions for ‘sincere religious beliefs that compel the refusal of such vaccination,’ the mandate violated their rights under the U.S. Constitution and the New York State Human Rights Law,” the Washington Examiner reported.
The state has until Sept. 22 to respond to the lawsuit to determine whether the case will continue.
Part of the lawsuit was based on the opposition to abortion.
“They oppose abortion under any circumstances, as they believe that abortion is the intrinsically evil killing of an innocent, and thus they also oppose the use of abortion-derived fetal cell lines for medical purposes and abortion-derived fetal stem cell research,” their lawyer said in the complaint filed Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.
The case may have a much wider impact as the Biden administration continues to expand vaccination mandate requirements. If so, the religious exemption aspect will require further consideration, a move that may even impact how future vaccines are made.
