In the United States, the excuse of religion to escape the vaccine

For those who resist the vaccine, all means of escape from the bite are good. In the United States, more and more employers are now requiring their employees to be vaccinated, and demands for exemptions on religious grounds are growing alarmingly in some regions. In Oregon, at least 11% of government employees have such exemptions, according to the latest figures released by the government. A similar finding in Los Angeles found that nearly a quarter of the city’s police force made this request last month, or more than 2,600 officers.

“Initially, there were false reports that the vaccines contained cells from aborted embryos. Therefore, some decided to reject abortion as it was against their beliefs,” explains Monica Gandhi, a medical specialist in infectious diseases at the university. California in San Francisco. If cell lines formed from old embryonic cells produced in the laboratory in the 1970s, The vaccine was used during the growth phase and there were virtually no embryonic cells in the vials.

“Religion is used as an excuse for some people not to be vaccinated,” said Irwin Redleiner, a professor at Columbia University and director of the Epidemiology and Response Initiative. “But none of the three major monotheistic religions prohibit believers from being vaccinated.” The call to receive the needle, launched by Pope Francis last August, was evidence that he then provoked a “gesture of love.” A month later, the radical Conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke attacked and took home the sovereign Pondicherry point of view, attacking “some deniers” who refused the vaccine.

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However, U.S. law sometimes provides for the possibility of obtaining a religious exemption under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although employers can theoretically reject this claim, according to Rachel Laser, president of the American Union for the Separation of Church and State, this situation is actually very rare. “The employee must prove the sincerity of his request by providing evidence of the incompatibility of the vaccine with his or her confidence. But in reality, many employers accept it very easily for fear of appearing anti-religious,” he underscores.

The vaccine campaign was threatened

This delicate question has already been brought before the court in any case, with conflicting judgments at the end of the day. Although the states of Maine and New York tried to vaccinate caregivers on the grounds that they could not seek religious exemptions, this week a federal judge confirmed the status in the first state, while a New York judge hung it in the second.

“Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States can rule on this question. But I’m worried that it will make that decision because it has a conservative majority that is very favorable to independence,” says Rachel Laser. “This religious freedom should not be the right to endanger the lives of others. It is not the right to make the First Amendment when there are dangers to public health.”

In conservative states, some local administrators are already too lax in vaccinating their constituencies. On Oct. 11, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order banning companies from requiring their employees to be vaccinated. In Florida, Governor Ron Desantis called for a similar speech in the state legislature this week. For good reason, according to a recent survey CBS / Yukov75% of Republican voters want to vote for a candidate who speaks out against compulsory vaccination. By comparison, it only affects 14% of Democrats. “This misuse of religion is a new obstacle to the vaccine campaign, especially in most religious states,” laments Irwin Redliner. The number of new needles in the country has been discontinued since this summer.