Is It My Constitutional Right To Refuse a Vaccine? UPDATED 1/13/2022

UPDATE: While I’m stirring the pot I thought I’d re-publish this article I wrote awhile back. Since my last post, https://drjonsicu.com/is-the-jab-really-a-vaccine-or-a-treatment-and-do-children-even-need-it/ I’ve been bombarded from ALL sides! Pro-vaxxers, Anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, liberals, conservatives….you name it! The good news it that there has also been a good amount of thoughtful INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION! A few that had to resort to name calling and obscenities. Most don’t realize it’s NOT your Constitutional right to refuse the “innoculation” they call the “vaccine”. THAT should get you upset……unless of course you’re one of those that LOVE the idea of mandates and censoring posts like mine on Anti-Social Media. So give it a read…..remember it’s all about CONTROL and this man-made bioweapon called Covid that accidently got out is being used and will continue to be used as long as it can be. We can stop it by WAKING UP! Have a great day…..remember…. It’s later than you think!

The first Covid vaccine has been delivered and 32,000 first doses were dispensed this week in Florida alone. Moderna’s version of the vaccine has received approval and will probably be delivered this week. Phase 3 clinical trials are in progress or being planned for five COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. Recent surveys have shown between 42 percent and 61 percent of Americans are willing to get vaccinated. There seem to be 3 factions developing on anti-social media.

• Those that welcome a Covid vaccine and were actually some of the first healthcare workers to get the first doses and those that will as soon as they can.
• Those that are unsure of the safety of a vaccine and plan on waiting to see how safe it is over the coming months.
• Those that are adamantly anti-vaccine and declare they will NEVER take the vaccine. There’s no shortage of conspiracy theories about the vaccine changing your DNA and making you a GMO (genetically modified organism), microchips that accompany the vaccine so the New World Order can track you, and continuing theories that the entire pandemic is a hoax. I wrote last week about the way the vaccine works and it does NOT change your DNA. https://drjonsicu.com/how-safe-and-effective-is-the-covid-19-vaccine-and-does-it-turn-you-into-a-gmo/

So if you want to REFUSE a vaccine is it your Constitutional right? You would think it’s your body and you should be able to make a decision over something as invasive as a vaccine! BUT it’s not that simple. Here’s what I found on the National Constitution website (https://constitutioncenter.org/)

• Vaccines CAN be mandated by individual states: “In the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court upheld the authority of the STATES to enforce mandatory vaccination laws under the police power of the states. That case arose in the midst of an outbreak of smallpox in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1902. Cambridge introduced an ordinance requiring all adults be vaccinated or revaccinated against smallpox. If they didn’t get vaccinated, they would have to pay a fine of $5! In the opinion, Justice John Marshall Harlan explained that personal liberties might be suspended in cases where the interest of the “common good” of the community are of paramount importance.” The court also allowed for exemptions when medically necessary.
• In a 1922, the Court further clarified in Zucht v. King that a school system could refuse admission to a student who did not meet vaccination requirements.
• Some states do allow refusal of vaccines due to religious beliefs but that’s not a Constitutional requirement. In 1944, in Prince v. Massachusetts, the Court held that states may require vaccination regardless of a parent’s religious objection, stating that, “the right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”  Most states have the option for parents to opt out for religious reasons, and about half of states broaden that exemption to personal or philosophical reasons.
• Federal authority on vaccines only applies to situations of national concern, such as the quarantine of foreign diseases the and regulation between states. Presumably the Covid pandemic would qualify as that.

It seems that the Supreme Court has certainly opened the door for MANDATORY vaccination! In April 2006 an article in the AMA Journal of Ethics looked at this topic. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/mandatory-vaccination-legal-time-epidemic/2006-04 Some of the points made:

• The 14th Amendment asserts that no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States or deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. BUT…….”the Supreme Court has recognized each state’s “police power,” which gives the state authority to enact health laws of every description, including quarantine and vaccination laws, to protect its citizens” They concluded that “Real liberty for all cannot exist if each individual is allowed to act without regard to the injury that his or her actions might cause others; liberty is constrained by law.” There have been various interpretations of this decision by the Supreme Court but it’s over 100 years old and there haven’t been any serious challenges during that time.

It appears that at the present time individual states CAN and HAVE made vaccinations mandatory. As of now the vaccine is NOT federally mandated. Can your employer demand you get the Covid vaccine? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said that U.S. employers could require employees to be vaccinated against the flu in its 2009 guidance on pandemic preparedness. Are there exceptions? Under the ADA (Americans with Disability Act), “an employer must provide reasonable accommodations to workers who have medical conditions that make them unable to take the vaccine, if a reasonable accommodation is possible.” Another exception is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It states that employees may be able to refuse vaccinations if they have a sincerely held religious belief that precludes vaccination, and not being vaccinated doesn’t impose an undue hardship on the employer. Simply being anti-vaccine is not enough! Union member employees might be able to negotiate mandatory vaccinations. As of right now the EEOC has not issued much information on mandatory Covid vaccines.

So there you have it as it stands today. States can and will definitely make the Covid vaccine mandatory. Whether the Federal Government chooses to make it a national mandate remains to be seen. Over 100 countries have a nationwide mandatory vaccination policy requiring one or more vaccines. 62 of them also impose one or more penalties against individuals who do not comply. As for penalties most commonly school enrollment is denied and in some instances there are financial penalties. Obviously you may also lose your job particularly in businesses with close contact with the public such as healthcare, sports, restaurants and entertainment. So much for thinking YOUR body is your own to do as you please! One more nail in the coffin of civil liberties. Maybe a lot of the fear and confusion could have been avoided if official guidance on Covid hadn’t been sensationalized and changed on a daily basis! Stay tuned and please subscribe!