It was only a matter of time before employees decided to fight back against mandatory vaccinations, which a number of corporations are trying to incorporate as a condition of employment.
According to the Washington Examiner, 117 employees at Houston Methodist Hospital filed a joint lawsuit against their employer, claiming in the court filing that hospital executives were planning on terminating anyone working at the hospital who refused to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
Human “guinea pigs”
The lawsuit, which is already making national headlines and depending on the outcome, could serve as a precedent for other groups of employees seeking similar actions, was filed in a Texas court on Friday by conservative attorney Jared Woodfill.
Woodfill’s argument rests on the wording of the post-World War 2-era Nuremberg Code ethics standard, which prohibits human testing without consent. In other words, he’s arguing that employees of the hospital are essentially test subjects if they’re forced to take a vaccine against their will in order to remain employed.
“Methodist Hospital is forcing its employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment,” a statement from Woodfill said.
“As CEO, Marc Boom [is] attempting to increase company profits by ‘leading the way’ and enticing potential patients to Defendant Methodist at the expense of other health care providers who do not force their employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for employment,” the attorney added.
Woodfill also cited the unknowns concerning the “mRNA gene modification” in COVID-19 vaccines, which critics of the vaccine have labeled as potentially dangerous as far as future side effects, with many in the scientific community disputing such claims.
Get the shot or get fired
Houston Methodist management made clear in March that all employees must receive a vaccination before June 7, or else face the possibility of being handed their walking papers. Of the prestigious hospital’s 2,600 employees, roughly 99% have complied with the mandate.
“As health care workers, it is our sacred obligation to do whatever we can to protect our patients, who are the most vulnerable in our community,” a hospital spokesperson said in an attempt to defend the mandate.
But lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges, a nurse at the hospital, argued that she’s not anti-vaccine and has taken many in her career, but feels as though she reserves the right to make the decision on whether to take a vaccine that was released to the public in under a year’s time.
“It’s like you’re being forced to do this, whether you like it or not,” Bridges said in a statement to the Washington Post.
Only time will tell how a judge in the case rules on the tricky situation, but either way, it will likely be a game-changer that will allow more employers to initiate such mandates or it could give workers across the country a legal foundation to opt-out of such mandates.
The post Employees band together, file lawsuit against hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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