NEW YORK, NY (SEPTEMBER 2, 2021) – We The Patriots USA, Inc. (WTP USA) filed a federal lawsuit today against New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, challenging the state’s new regulation requiring all healthcare workers in New York to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 27, 2021. Two nurses at Syosset Hospital in Long Island and a healthcare professional at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse joined WTP USA as plaintiffs in the federal complaint.
The new regulation removes religious exemptions as a basis for healthcare workers to decline the COVID-19 shots. All three individual plaintiffs are Christians, and object to the use of aborted fetal cell lines in the testing of the shots. The plaintiffs allege violations of the Free Exercise (of religion) clause of the First Amendment, as well as the rights to privacy and medical freedom protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Among other things, the plaintiffs assert that the state’s new mandate “violates the Free Exercise Clause by permitting a secular (medical) exemption on an individualized basis while categorically mandating the rejection of religious exemptions. … forcing the Plaintiffs and all healthcare workers in New York to choose between their religious beliefs and their jobs and careers.” The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the new regulation unconstitutional and grant a permanent injunction preventing the state from enforcing it.
WTP USA released the following statement on Thursday: “We are absolutely disgusted with the tyrannical government overreach exerted by the State of New York on its healthcare workers. Last year they were heroes, this year they are zeroes. Not only is the state’s conduct flagrantly unconstitutional, but it further exacerbates the nursing shortage in this country. With mandates like these, it is no wonder that just yesterday the American Nurses Association asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to declare the nursing shortage in this country a ‘national crisis.’”
WTP USA is a nationwide nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting Constitutional rights and other individual freedoms. Please direct press inquiries and requests for interviews to [email protected].