Court rejects religious challenge to New York’s vaccine mandate for health care workers

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down two requests to block New York’s vaccine mandate for health care workers. Two groups of health care workers are challenging the mandate, arguing that it violates their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. But over the public dissents of three conservative justices, the court denied the workers’ requests to put the mandate on hold while litigation continues.

The dispute centers on a regulation issued by New York’s state health department that requires all health care workers in the state to be vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they qualify for a medical exemption. The regulation does not contain a religious exemption.

The challengers went to federal court, contending that they cannot comply without violating their religious beliefs because the three vaccines available in the United States all were tested or developed with cells descended from decades-old aborted fetal cells. One set of challengers told the justices that the vaccine mandate “imposes an unconscionable choice on New York healthcare workers: abandon their faith or lose their careers and their best means to provide for their families.”

The use of historical fetal cell lines is routine in the development and testing of drugs and vaccines, and the COVID vaccines themselves do not contain aborted fetal cells. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other anti-abortion religious leaders have said it is ethically acceptable to receive the vaccines.