Religious opponents of vaccines must be consistent in their use of moral objections

Does vaccine rejection reflect a true religious belief, or is it just a personal preference? If it is the former, does it deserve protection under the first amendment?

Last week, a federal judge rejected a tentative ban on the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. UCHealth set a deadline of October 1 for staff to be vaccinated and fired 119 employees who did not comply. A Catholic doctor and a Buddhist medical student are challenging the claim in court. None of them have been vaccinated. Both claim to oppose the COVID-19 vaccine because of their religious beliefs.

They reject the vaccine because abortion-derived fetal cell lines were used in their development. Pfizer and Moderna tested their vaccines on such cells, while Johnson and Johnson use them in the production of their vaccine. Cell lines are originally derived from living tissue and can be grown indefinitely in the laboratory through cellular replication. The cell lines used by the first two companies are derived from kidney cells taken from a baby who was aborted in 1973, and the latter company uses cells removed from someone else’s eyes in 1985.

Denying medical interventions associated with human death and suffering is commendable, but more challenging than one might think, given its ubiquity. The rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A and Imovax rabies vaccines all involve the utilization of fetal cell lines in their production. Cell lines were also used in research and development of common drugs such as ibuprofen, Tums, Zoloft, Prilosec, Benadryl and Remdesivir, a COVID treatment. These vaccines and medicines alleviate human suffering and save lives. Should they be avoided even if there is no alternative?

What about medical instruments that have an ugly history? The inventor of the speculum developed the instrument through trial and error when he operated on slave women without anesthesia. When he had been perfected, he used the instrument during pelvic surgeries on white women, but they were given anesthesia. Should a conscientious physician or patient give up this device even though there is no alternative?

What about poorly acquired medical knowledge? Should results from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or Nazi hypothermia experiments be permanently deleted because of the cruelty and death of researchers and their patients? What about medical knowledge obtained before the adoption of the Patient Consent Act?

If a doctor or patient avoids only one medical intervention that is tainted by human suffering, in this case the COVID vaccine, but does not show discomfort with other such medical treatments, they are simply inconsistent in the application of a genuine belief, or hide they their refusal to get shot for other reasons in the guise of religious disagreement? Honestly, it seems to be the latter.

If it is the former – an inconsistently applied but genuine conviction – are the applicants protected by the first amendment? The U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government (and state governments through the incorporation of the 14th Amendment) from banning the free exercise of religion. In practice, this means that Jews and Muslims have access to kosher and halal meals in the penitentiary, a Catholic care agency can choose to work only with heterosexual couples, Mennonites can be conscientious objectors in times of war, atheist students do not have to say “under God” , when they recite the vow of allegiance, and Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have to say the vow at all, although no one in this glorious freedom of speech can be forced to say the vow for any reason.

We have the right to believe and act on the tenants of our faith or lack thereof. But no right is without limits. A person is absolutely free to believe anything, but is not always free to act on that belief if this practice violates the health and safety of the public. In the 1879 Reynolds v. United States case, the court affirmed a belief in bigamy, although the Mormon man sincerely believed that he should marry more women. “To allow this would be to make the well-known doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in fact to allow any citizen to become a law unto himself,” the majority wrote.

UCHealth has compelling reasons to require medical staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because vaccinated people are less likely to become infected with COVID, less likely to spread the disease if they become infected, or less likely to be admitted. For these reasons, they are less likely to spread the virus to medically susceptible patients – the premenstrual who cannot be vaccinated or the cancer patient who, even if vaccinated, is still at risk of a life-threatening infection.

Giving an employee the opportunity to take a religious exemption can cost a medically vulnerable person their life.

Ultimately, the courts will decide.

Krista L. Kafer is a weekly columnist for the Denver Post. Follow her on Twitter: @kritakafer

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for submitting by email or mail.