A federal judge has temporarily blocked New York State from forcing medical workers to get vaccinated after a group of health workers denounced them, saying their constitutional rights were violated.
UTICA, New York – A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked New York State from forcing medical workers to get vaccinated after a group of health workers sued them, saying their constitutional rights were violated because the state mandate prohibited religious exemptions.
Judge David Hurd in Utica issued the order after 17 health professionals, including doctors and nurses, claimed Monday in a lawsuit that their rights were violated with a vaccine warrant that did not allow for exemptions.
The judge gave New York State until Sept. 22 to respond to the lawsuit in Utica federal court. If the state opposes the plaintiffs ’request for a preliminary injunction to block the vaccine warrant, an oral hearing will be held on September 28th.
The state issued the order on August 28, which required at least a first shot for health workers in hospitals and nursing homes before September 27.
In their lawsuit, health professionals disguised their identities under pseudonyms such as “Dr. A. “,” Nurse A. “and” Doctor’s Link X. “
They cited violations of the U.S. Constitution, along with the New York State Human Rights Act and the New York City Human Rights Act, because the regulation of the State Department of Health that required workers the vaccine did not provide any exemption for “sincere religious beliefs that compel the denial of such vaccination.”
Court documents said all available vaccines use aborted fetal cell lines in their testing, development, or production.
The lawsuit said the plaintiffs wanted to proceed anonymously because “they run the risk of ostracism, threats of damage, immediate dismissals and other retaliatory consequences if their names are known.”
The plaintiffs, all Christians, included practicing physicians, nurses, a nuclear medicine technologist, a cognitive rehabilitation therapist, and a medical liaison who oppose, out of religious conviction, any medical cooperation in the abortion, according to the lawsuit.
He added that they are not “anti-vaxxers” who oppose all vaccines.
Messages were sent asking for comments from Thomas More Society’s attorneys who filed the lawsuit, the New York State Department of Health and the New York Governor’s Office. The state attorney general’s office referred questions to the health department.