Whatever else you read today, don’t miss the opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch in the Supreme Court case of Dr. A v. Kathy Hochul.
Unfortunately, Justice Gorsuch was writing in dissent. The Court’s majority ruled against health-care workers in New York, who had said that mandatory vaccination violates their religious freedom, since it requires them to violate their consciences (by taking a vaccine developed with the use of fetal tissues) or lose their jobs.
New York’s Governor Hochul had laughed off the religious-freedom claim, announcing that no “sanctioned religious exemption from any religion” would be allowed. Anticipating complaints from pro-life Catholics, she added that “everybody from the Pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
Well, not “everybody.” There are Catholic prelates and theologians who argue—persuasively—that the use of vaccines developed using fetal cell lines is ethically unacceptable. As a matter of fact, the Vatican has made that argument, repeatedly. And while it is true that Pope Francis, along with most bishops, now encourages vaccination (arguing that there is a grave need because of the Covid epidemic), the Catechism of the Catholic Church very clearly teaches that if one’s conscience weighs against an action—in this case, perhaps because one does not see a grave need—then one is obligated to obey what conscience dictates, even if Church authorities reach a different conclusion. Finally, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has emphasized that vaccination must be voluntary.
So clearly there is a religious-freedom argument in this case. Moreover, in her public statements promoting the mandate, Governor Hochul is not shy about invoking her own religious beliefs. She told vaccine proponents, “you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are.”
That last phrase—“You know who they are”—strikes an ominous note. Is the Governor encouraging the people of New York to look with suspicion on those who wish to claim religious exemptions? Is she setting them up to be rejected as enemies of the people? Is it not enough that, under her mandate, they would lose their jobs—and be ineligible for unemployment benefits? The Hochul mandate looks like a policy designed to punish religious dissenters.
So Justice Gorsuch, in his dissenting opinion, scolds the Court majority: “It is astonishing that the Court tolerates this blatant invasion of religious freedom by a bigoted Governor and her health bureaucrats on the pretext of a never-ending ‘emergency’ that morphs as rapidly as the virus itself.”
Like so many of the policies that have been enacted during the Covid lockdown, the Hochul mandate is not an act of legislation. It is an emergency measure, promulgated by the Governor on her own authority, because—we are told—the “emergency” is so dire that the legislature cannot act quickly enough. Really? Nearly two years into the epidemic, has there not been ample time for legislative research, debate, and action?
The Covid epidemic has supplied all too many excuses for peremptory government actions—actions not taken by the people and/or their elected representatives, but by executives or even unelected bureaucrats. The multiplication of these non-legislative actions—and their increasingly draconian provisions—endanger the democratic understanding on which the American system of government rests: the understanding that “We, the people” establish the rules by which we live.
Justice Gorsuch notes that the New York mandate is particularly burdensome. “It seems that nearly every other States has found that it can satisfy its Covid-19 public health goals without coercing religious objectors to accept a vaccine,” he writes. But something else is going on in New York: something more than a drive to encourage vaccine; something more like a drive to punish religious dissent. Thus Gorsuch rightly observes that “what explanations the Governor has chosen to supply undermine rather than advance the State’s cause.”
Yet the weakness of the Gorsuch opinion, as I pointed out at the outset, is its status; it is a minority opinion. Regrettably, the Supreme Court found the logic of Governor Hochul, with her contempt for religious claims, more compelling than the logic of Justice Gorsuch, with his respect for limitations on government power.
From Phil Lawler in Catholic Culture.
Stare decisis
A most interesting read, but again, still contains a splattering of superlatives and emotive words to create a sense of something nefarious to the reader who might inclined to such conclusions. i am not saying that judges, especially SCOTUS ones, should be absolutely unaffected by their own religious views, but rather recognizing that, in those positions, like that of Governor or President, should be tempered by said views and not ruled by them. i do not abide by the proposition that if an elected official rules on an issue that is not in keeping with a particular group, that automatically the conclusion can be made that the elected official is bigoted against said group. One of my students quipped, “So if a diocesan Bishop rules that a particular parochial school run by a given order of nuns to be closed that the Bishop is ergo bigoted against the school or nun’s group? No, it means the Bishop had to decide on something larger than the issue of the school, etc “…. Suppressing religious freedom is tricky to prove, more so to mandate without some compelling situation, such as societal health.
The title is rather “Onward Christian Soldiers”-ish, as if by dissenting Gorsuch gains points with the pro-life faction.
Last point: the argument about the vaccines being developed with the aid of fetal tissue is rather double edge sword. Just as a citizen can claim he’s part of a religious sect that abhors war in order to obtain a conscientious objector status,the person has to prove they truly adhere to all the tenets of that sect: active participation, social media writings that indicate a strict adherence, etc. Can we truly claim that all those who desire this on the basis of pro-life tenets are TRULY adherents to all the Catholic dogma? Do they take Tylenol for headaches, even though it too has a fetal cell origin (among other products others use)Are there not pro-life adherents who also practice, covertly or overtly, birth control despite their CCD teachings? Are/were all the complainers virgins until marriage, or wore white on their wedding day in a pastiche of religious purity to appease their family’s belief that their post-teen daughter or son stayed pure? If you’re going to claim an exemption, one should definitely be able to pass the “adherent in all respects” test.
Tylenol was first introduced in 1955 by McNeil, a long time before abortion was legal, so there should not have been any testing on aborted baby tissue. Although Johnson and Johnson bought it, I doubt there has been any changes in the formula since then. If there has been such testing, plese show the evidence.
Tylenol was first introduced in 1955 by McNeil, a long time before abortion was legal, so there should not have been any testing on aborted baby tissue. Although Johnson and Johnson bought it, I doubt there has been any changes in the formula since then. If there has been such testing, plese show the evidence.
It is on every list that I have seen. So is aspirin which has been around longer than Tylenol.
Is it certain brands or all brands?
I avoid Nestles coffee creamers because they have used the testing, although there is no fetal matter in the product. Such products are not really healthy anyway.
Religious exemptions exist for a reason. If they are never allowed, then it was never more than lip service. Our constitutional rights are written in stone. No one has the power to deny you your birthright as a citizen.