The Supreme Court docket has rejected an emergency enchantment from well being care staff in Maine to dam a vaccine mandate that went into impact Friday.
Three conservative justices famous their dissents. The state shouldn’t be providing a spiritual exemption to hospital and nursing dwelling staff who threat shedding their jobs if they don’t seem to be vaccinated.
Solely New York and Rhode Island even have vaccine mandates for well being care staff that lack spiritual exemptions. Each are the topic of court docket fights. On Friday, a federal appeals court docket panel upheld New York state’s vaccine mandate for well being care staff, rejecting arguments by attorneys for docs, nurses and different professionals that it didn’t adequately defend these with spiritual objections.
As is typical in emergency appeals, the Supreme Court docket didn’t clarify its motion. However Justice Neil Gorsuch mentioned in a dissent for himself and two fellow conservatives that he would have agreed to the well being care staff’ request.
“The place many different States have adopted spiritual exemptions, Maine has charted a special course,” Gorsuch wrote. “There, healthcare staff who’ve served on the entrance line of a pandemic for the final 18 months are actually being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected spiritual beliefs. Their plight is worthy of our consideration.”
He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett famous in a brief assertion agreeing with the court docket’s determination to not intervene that the justices have been being requested to “grant extraordinary reduction” in a case that’s the first of its type. She was joined by a fellow conservative, Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The authorized group that sued to cease the mandate vowed to return to the Supreme Court docket to press for a full assessment on the deserves. “This case is way from over,” mentioned Mat Staver, founder and chair of the Liberty Counsel.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills mentioned she was gratified that the mandate was upheld, saying it is crucial for hospitals to “take each precaution to guard their staff and sufferers towards this lethal virus.”
“This rule protects well being care staff, their sufferers, and the soundness of our well being care system within the face of this harmful virus,” she mentioned in a press release. “Simply as vaccination defeated smallpox and vaccination defeated polio, vaccination is the way in which to defeat COVID-19.”
The excessive court docket has beforehand turned away college students at Indiana College and lecturers in New York Metropolis who objected to being vaccinated. Each the college and metropolis permit individuals to hunt spiritual exemptions. All the justices have been vaccinated.
Maine’s requirement was put in place by the governor. A federal decide in Maine declined to cease the mandate, concluding that the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed. The Oct. 13 determination prompted a flurry of appeals that landed, for a second time, within the Supreme Court docket.
The Liberty Counsel, which filed the lawsuit, claimed to be representing greater than 2,000 well being care staff who do not wish to be compelled to be vaccinated.
Dozens of well being care staff have opted to give up, and a hospital in Maine’s second-largest metropolis already curtailed some admissions due to an “acute scarcity” of nurses.
However most well being staff have complied, and Maine residents basically have been supportive of the vaccine. The Maine Hospital Affiliation and different well being care teams assist the requirement.
Enforcement of the mandate started on the identical day the governor introduced 80% of eligible Mainers have been vaccinated.
Mills mentioned she applauds those that “rolled up their sleeves to do what’s proper for themselves, their neighbors, and their communities.”
