bigdog wrote on 9/10/2021 1:11 PM:
> I expect a slew of court challenges to these mandates and I expect some of them to be upheld. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not going to pretend to know how much power the President has to do the things he is proposing. The courts are going to have the final say on these matters.
>
> I think it would be easier just to say to the unvaccinated, "If you get deathly ill, the government isn't going to do anything to help you. You're on your own. If you die, you die.".
I am sure there is nothing in the Constitution that forbid vaccination
mandate. I have heard that US soldiers have to take all kinds of
preventive vaccines. I am sure the federal government has the right to
mandate vaccination to its employees as a condition of employment.
This article has some precedents of federal government forcing vaccine
on people:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/opinions/unvaccinated-cant-use-constitutional-rights-excuse-hamilton-offit/index.html
You do not have the 'constitutional right' to refuse the Covid-19 vaccine
(CNN)Now that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the
Pfizer/ BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, it's time
for all governments across the country to mandate the vaccine for people
taking part in indoor activities. There are no more valid excuses for
not being vaccinated other than health reasons.
One frequently heard pushback against vaccine mandates is that there is
a "constitutional right" to choose whether to be vaccinated or not for
adults and a right to determine whether children can be vaccinated. That
is a non-starter in the midst of a pandemic.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact guaranteeing a right to harm
others. The government has latitude to protect citizens from deadly
conditions, especially when the science supporting vaccination is so clear.
The bioethicist, professor Arthur Caplan of New York University, has
made a compelling case for the moral mandate to require vaccination.
Appearing with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in a news briefing
last month to address the city mandating vaccines for all municipal
workers, he argued that the new policy "makes good, ethical and public
health sense" and that "it will help all of us by keeping the COVID
outbreak controlled."
We agree, but also believe that the public needs to better understand
that there is no constitutional right to avoid vaccine mandates against
a deadly disease.
With respect to children, parents do not have carte blanche. At one
time, children were the property of their fathers, but that is no longer
the case. Children are "persons" under the Constitution, and as the
ruling in Prince v. Massachusetts held, parents do not have a
constitutional right to make martyrs of their children. Parents have an
obligation to protect their children's health and life, which means that
the school district mandates that reduce the risk of death to children
should be enforceable, period.
Those challenging the government mandates are likely to invoke their
rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, which protect
speech, religion, and a right not to "be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law." Their view ends up as a snapshot
of themselves; nonetheless, rights can be limited if a person is
endangering another.
It's a sentiment that came up in the 1905 Supreme Court decision in the
case Jacobson v. Massachusetts. The court ruled against a man who had
refused to be vaccinated against smallpox, stating: "Real liberty for
all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes
the right of each individual person to use his own (liberty), whether in
respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may
be done to others." That same principle was apparent when Justice Amy
Coney Barrett, who is thought to be a strong rights-advocate, left
standing Indiana University's vaccine mandate.
The government may prohibit otherwise constitutionally protected conduct
to save the lives of others.
For example, it is well-settled that governments can ban yelling "Fire"
in a crowded theater, because such speech can lead to death as attendees
race to the exits. True, the First Amendment's Speech Clause protects
the "freedom of speech," but there is no requirement that the government
can't prevent scenarios likely leading to death.
The same reasoning applies to vaccine mandates. The Supreme Court
explicitly upheld vaccine mandates against deadly diseases in Jacobson,
where it explained: "the rights of the individual in respect of his
liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected
to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the
safety of the general public may demand." We live in a country of
ordered liberty, not individual autonomy that paves the way to the
deaths of others. In short, it is not the right of every American
citizen to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection.
We would posit, further, that governments that don't mandate vaccination
against Covid-19 are skating very close to violating the standard for a
constitutional right to "life" without due process. If a government does
not take reasonable action to prevent the likely deaths of so many
people, there will be more lawsuits. Already, we've seen schools filing
lawsuits against former Trump administration officials and individuals
suing the World Health Organization contending that they mishandled the
Covid-19 response.
The depth of the science and the worldwide experience show plainly that
vaccination is the best protection from this pandemic, and that the
faster we reach herd immunity the more likely it will be that people
won't die from this virus, hospitals won't be overburdened, and the
economy will fully recover.
It is reckless at this point for the government not to mandate
vaccination. Some politicians have falsely told Americans that they have
a constitutional right to refuse vaccination. This is a license to
potentially infect others with a deadly disease when the Supreme Court
has consistently held otherwise.
Children and adults have a constitutional right to "life" that can only
be protected if there is mass vaccination. It's time for state and local
governments to issue vaccine mandates and fines -- as New York and San
Francisco have -- before this virus mutates into an even more elusive
killer than it already is.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/opinions/unvaccinated-cant-use-constitutional-rights-excuse-hamilton-offit/index.html