Vaccine Exemptions: What To Ask For
As employers and the Federal Government have been busy forcing people to be vaccinated, I have been helping people receive exemptions from the vaccine mandates. This is a follow-up blog to the first one I wrote on the vaccine mandates several weeks ago. Many people have found my first blog very helpful as they drafted and submitted their request for exemption. There are cases where employers have denied requests, but in most cases, a carefully crafted request for a medical and/or religious exemption has been honored by employers.
Now that deadlines are passing, I am hearing from more people who have been denied an exemption. Some of these are people I have tried to help, but most are people who are reaching out now are doing so for the first time. Most of these people have tried to navigate the exemption process without an attorney, while some consulted an attorney and do not seem to have followed through on all the legal advice they likely received. Now that they are being told they will be disciplined and in many cases fired in the very near future, they are growing more and more concerned.
If you are in this situation, or if you know someone in this situation, please read on, and share this with them and others. Even though this is simply a general blog, and cannot replace the advice of your own attorney, it may help you organize your thoughts and approach so that when you do hire your own attorney, you can not only be a “good” client, but you and your attorney can be successful, and you get to keep earning an income and paying your bills.
What To Ask For:
Everything. Do not leave any option unclaimed. Some people are beginning to tell me that they did not file for a religious exemption because their pastor, or their Church, would not sign a document supporting their request for a religious exemption. Let me be really clear here: THAT DOESN’T MATTER.
You do not need a signature, a letter, or any sort of support from any religious figure or religious institution in order to ask for a religious exemption. You simply need to ask. Your religious belief is yours and yours alone. You don’t have to meet certain criteria, belong to any group, or have a list of pro-life activities in order to have a religious objection to the way the vaccines were researched, developed, and/or tested.
You have a conscience. If the use of abortion-derived fetal cell lines in the research, development, and/or testing of the vaccine is sincerely offensive to your conscience, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires employers to accommodate your sincerely held religious belief as long as the reasonable accommodation needed poses no undue hardship on the employer.
This means there is no guarantee that your employer will grant your request, but at least it puts you in the best position to receive the exemption and keep your job.
There is one thing you can do in order to almost guarantee that you will be fired. Don’t ask. If you decide not to ask for the religious exemption, your employer will not grant it. They will just fire you, put you on unpaid leave (fire you), or transfer you to something so boring and so far away, that they will effectively be firing you. In such a case, can you file a labor claim against your employer or sue them for wrongful termination? Well, you could, but you may not have a great case against them and you certainly won’t have as good a case as if you had simply asked for the exemption. First of all, they told you they would fire you if you did not get vaccinated. Secondly, they said that you could request an exemption. Third, they gave you a deadline.
Should you ask for the medical exemption? Yes. Here, the supporting document is very important though. Unlike the personal and private religious beliefs of individuals, medical facts do need (or at least greatly benefit from) confirmation or proof from physicians, scientists, and other medical professionals. Therefore, it is very wise to back up your requests for a medical exemption with something from a doctor or other medical professional. It is also best if this is your actual treating physician or medical provider who theoretically, knows your medical history and condition better than anyone else.
Should you include the fact that you have already had Covid? Absolutely! We know that many people think that natural immunity is brief, weak, or insufficient. They are wrong, and as more medical evidence is gathered, they will be proven more and more wrong each time. Just because a skeptic does not believe your natural immunity is good enough does not mean you don’t include that in your request for an exemption. The legal system may fully recognize natural immunity by the time your case gets before the judge. Ask for your medical exemption completely and fully, leaving no stone unturned. Your recovery from Covid needs to be included if, in fact, you had Covid and are one of the 99.5% of people who have survived it. Arguably, the more severe your bout of Covid, the better your antibodies.
What about those antibodies? Now is the time to get tested. In fact, if you have a lot of antibodies right now, it may be a good medical reason to not be vaccinated. Some doctors (the wise ones) will tell you that you need to wait until your antibodies decline before receiving the vaccine, because the combination of the vaccine and the antibodies can make you pretty darned sick, even if only for awhile.
What is the entire reason people are pushing the vaccines? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they want to stop the spread of Covid, and they want to reduce the severity of the symptoms of Covid in those infected. There is evidence that the vaccine does both of these things, though not nearly to the degree we were promised months ago. Natural immunity does these things too, and likely to a much greater degree than many in the pharmaceutical industry would like you to know. And the government health department leaders seem to be following the direction of the pharmaceutical industry like it is a paint by numbers project as well.
Summary
Should you ask for a religious exemption even though you think it will be or might be rejected? Yes.
Should you ask for a medical exemption even if you think it will be or might be rejected? Yes.
Should you include evidence of a positive Covid test in your request for a medical exemption if you have one? Yes.
Should you have your antibodies tested and provide proof of antibodies in your request for medical exemption if they show up on the test results? Yes.
What if you don’t think you have had Covid? Should you have the antibody test anyway? I would still say yes. It isn’t terribly expensive, and if you have antibodies, it helps your case. If you don’t have antibodies, you don’t have to disclose that to anyone. Therefore, it is not evidence which can be used against you unless you share the negative results with others. Therefore, if you don’t have antibodies, just keep that information to yourself.
In Closing
I don’t blame anyone for getting the vaccine. I also don’t blame anyone for declining the vaccine. The line is drawn at pressure. No one should be pressured, coerced, or forced to receive any vaccine. The fact that these tactics are being employed by some employers and by the Biden Administration is a telltale sign that something is seriously wrong in our country. That is where the justice system and the Constitution serve to sort out the right from the wrong. President Biden is very wrong, and so is each employer and all other individuals who are trying to force people to “take the jab”.
If you want the vaccine, you should have every right to receive it. People should be given the traditional American right to make their own decision regarding the vaccine. If you don’t want the vaccine, you have the legal right to decline, and you also have the legal right to keep your job, enter a grocery store, receive medical care, and be free from the consequences of other people’s fears and/or misunderstanding of what it means to live in a free society. Hopefully, this blog helps you in this endeavor.
Oh, and contact your attorney to make sure you make a thorough and solid request.
I have different opinions of the “my body my choice” with no disrespect to you or your opinion I am a woman who have accessed an abortion and childbirth. my reasons for having an abortion were valid to me……you see I was raised by very abusive parents and did not want to be that kind of parent. I saw both my older brothers be abusive, not to the degree as our parents but still abusive. In the mind state I was in I felt it would be inevitable. Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body and to many, the help is not there. Right or wrong, abortion is something no Lawmaker, priest, parent, or anyone should tell a woman no don’t do it. a baby is not an individual until it is separated from the mother. after the child is born are the supreme court or state and local officials going to [ass legislation to make it easier for the mother to raise the child? Will state funding become available for housing, food, and daycare? The answer is no. Thou shalt not judge thy neighbor until you have walked a mile in his shoes. that is a bible verse I learned when I was four years old. most women who seek an abortion are thinking of the unborn child probably more than themselves. You wouldn’t know that because as a man you will never have to make the decisions that need to make during pregnancy and after birth. you will never have that connection to a fetus that a woman does. Abortion is a hard enough decision and the law and the church are making it harder and more stressful by judging women so harshly. I would be more helpful if you and your church would reach out and provide a safe place for the children that are already here.
Thank you for your comment Katherine. As you might imagine, I can poke holes, or at least believe I can poke holes, in all of your arguments. While adoption would have prevented you from being abusive to your child, while I have had to engage in work and have chosen to engage in athletic pursuits which have “taken a toll” on my body – most men and women have – and while many of us find ourselves in situations where we need help and it isn’t there, the real heart of your argument is that a baby is not worthy of the right to live until it is separated from its mother. This simply isn’t true. And therefore, it is essential that I focus my small comment on the unscientific premise of that claim. Science tells us that at the moment of the egg’s fertilization by the sperm, a unique human DNA comes into existence and hundreds of characteristics of the child are immediately determined. Unless that new human life runs into something which stops its development, a human baby will be born in about 40 weeks. At no point prior to that moment of birth, will any respectable physician or nurse claim that it isn’t a human life. As a Christian, as an American, and as a moral being, I have an obligation to defend the defenseless, even if that means defending a child from its own parents and doctor. In saying this I don’t judge you or condemn you. It is obvious that you were conditioned to think and behave the way you did. This is likely the result of an abusive home. Nor do I judge any other woman who has had an abortion. I know and respect women who have made such choices in the past, and who now regret that choice. We are all sinners, we have all made mistakes and bad decisions in the past. I’m no different than you in that regard. The fact is, there is a lot more being done for young mothers, children, and poor families, than you apparently acknowledge. One of many examples is the Bethlehem House in Omaha. Look it up. Gianna’s Home is another. Numerous pregnancy resource centers across Nebraska alone, assist mothers and their children as they obtain stability after rejecting an abortion. These things are unkown to many people because the media doesn’t promote it and many propaganda artists overwhelm the true message of support, assistance, and care provided by the pro life community, most of whom (but not all) are Catholic. There is a growing number of non-Catholic and even non-Christian pro life advocates in the U.S. So, as you say that no lawmaker, priest, or parent should tell a woman that they cannot have an abortion, I can tell you this with confidence and examples: Thousands and likely millions of women wish they had listened to those who were offering them alternatives when they had their abortion. Unfortunately, the drumbeat of the culture of death was too loud and it made the message of life too difficult to hear for many women (over sixty million), and they chose abortion. For the most part, it wasn’t the fault of those mothers. It was the fault of the activists, the propagandists, and the profiteers. Regardless of your opinion on my response, I hope you will reach out to https://www.rachelsvineyard.org and at least give them the opportunity to talk to you. I believe you will be very happy you did so.