President Joe Biden announced his administration will require large employers and the federal government to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or regular testing for workers, affecting around 100 million people.
The decision was announced on September 9, soon after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially approved the first COVID-19 vaccine for use by individuals over the age of 16.
The reaction to the order was fast and furious. Republican governors are exploring legal options against the Biden administration. Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul said his organization is mobilizing pro-liberty Americans to resist the order.
“President Biden’s executive order forcing companies with 100 or more employees to require COVID vaccination or weekly testing has no basis in science, the Constitution, or the principles of a free society,” said Paul in a statement. “It also sets a dangerous precedent that can and will be used to justify future federal mandates on businesses and their employees.”
Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), an organization opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates on college campuses, said this latest development is an outrage.
“The president of the United States should be defending our liberties, not playing the role of dictator doctor, said YAL Chief of Staff Sean Themea, in a news release. “This agenda constitutes the greatest invasion of individual liberty in modern history and will wake many Americans up to the fact that the government’s top priority is to control the people, not serve them.”
‘It’s About Seizing Control’
Biden does not have the authority to impose this mandate, says Twila Brase, R.N., Ph.N., the president and co-founder of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.
“President Biden cannot simply seize power and dictate orders,” said Brase. “Ours is a limited government, with divided powers specifically to stop this kind of dictatorial power.
“His executive order demonstrates this is no longer about COVID; it’s about seizing control,” Brase said. “His administration probably hopes that they can push this mandate through and the population will again acquiesce. Americans must refuse, and his administration’s injection edicts must be stopped. The government that can impose one injection will impose many more.”
Supreme Court Precedent
A U.S. Supreme Court case dating back to 1905, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upheld the power of the state to force people to accept vaccinations in response to a public health threat. The case occurred more than 100 years ago in the fight to eradicate smallpox, a significantly more life-threatening illness than COVID-19. Similar arguments are being used to defend coercing people to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Biden’s mandate interferes with an individual’s right to refuse treatment, says Andrew Schlafly, an attorney who has represented the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“The Jacobson vaccine decision by the Supreme Court in 1905 should no longer be considered good law,” Schlafly said. “Individual rights have expanded enormously since then, while vaccine mandates today are profit-driven without the justification in 1905 of trying to stop the smallpox disease.
“Medical exemptions were expressly allowed by the Jacobson decision, while today they have been generally denied despite more than 12,000 deaths reported to VAERS in connection with the COVID vaccines,” Schlafly said.
AnneMarie Schieber (amschieber@heartland.org) is the managing editor of Health Care News.
S. T. Karnick (skarnick@heartland.org) is a senior fellow and director of publications at The Heartland Institute.
(This article was updated on September 30, 2021)