Supreme Court Rules Against Navy SEALs in Vaccine Mandate Case

Decide Reed O’Connor, of the Federal District Court docket in Fort Price, had issued a preliminary injunction barring the Navy from taking any punitive motion towards its personnel, together with 26 SEALs, whereas their lawsuit moved ahead. Decide O’Connor stated the plaintiffs had spiritual objections to the coronavirus vaccine that the Navy needed to respect.

After a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, refused to dam that ruling, the Biden administration filed an emergency utility within the Supreme Court docket.

The administration requested solely partial aid, saying it didn’t search to dam the a part of the injunction defending the plaintiffs from discharge or self-discipline. As a substitute, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the solicitor common, requested the justices to keep up “the Navy’s authority to determine which service members ought to be deployed to execute a number of the army’s most delicate and harmful missions.”

Ms. Prelogar wrote that the injunction had already pressured the Navy, towards its army judgment, to ship one of many plaintiffs to Hawaii for submarine obligation. Normally, she wrote, “Navy personnel routinely function for prolonged durations of time in confined areas which can be ripe breeding grounds for respiratory sicknesses, the place mitigation measures equivalent to distancing are impractical or unimaginable.”

She famous that the army had lengthy required vaccinations, beginning in 1777, when George Washington ordered the inoculation of the Continental Military towards smallpox. As of early 2021, she wrote, 9 vaccines have been required for all service members.

In August, the Protection Division stated it might add the coronavirus vaccine to the listing. By the top of the 12 months, greater than 99 p.c of active-duty Navy service members had been totally vaccinated.

However the 35 service members, all assigned to the Naval Particular Warfare Command, refused, saying that their spiritual religion forbade them from being vaccinated towards Covid-19. They’d 4 sorts of objections, Decide O’Connor wrote: “opposition to abortion and using aborted fetal cell traces in growth of the vaccine,” “perception that modifying one’s physique is an affront to the Creator,” “direct, divine instruction to not obtain the vaccine” and “opposition to injecting hint quantities of animal cells into one’s physique.”