The non-profit legal counsel group Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to Southern Illinois Healthcare (SIH) on behalf of seven employees and numerous others who have been unlawfully denied religious exemption from the COVID shot mandate without explanation or ability to appeal.
SIH advised its health care workers that their deadline to receive the first dose of a COVID-19 injection is September 24, 2021. SIH requires employees seeking religious exemption from the shot mandate to submit their requests on the specified form. In addition to requiring each employee’s personal statement explaining the employee’s religious objection to the injection, the form illegally demands that a third-party religious leader verify the sincerity of the employee’s beliefs and the employee’s membership “in good standing” of a religious organization.
However, Liberty Counsel wrote in a statement on the issue, SIH does not inform its employees of the increasingly apparent policy of the SIH Exemption Committee and SIH Occupational Health & Safety to deny nearly all religious exemption requests without explanation. In addition, some employees have received religious exemptions based on the same reasons given by employees who have been denied. SIH does not provide any reasons for its denials and refuses to provide them even after employees have requested them. All this is an apparent attempt to hide its illegal reasons.
SIH is unlawfully discriminating against some while treating others favorably, despite the employees submitting the required documentation of their sincerely held religious beliefs, they claim.
In the letter from Liberty Counsel to the Carbondale-based health care system, they write:
B. The Denied Religious Exemption Requests Were Factually Supported.
Employees 1–7 all included as grounds for their religious exemption requests, in whole or in part, their sincerely held religious beliefs against abortion and the connection of all available COVID-19 vaccines to aborted fetal cell lines. (Exs. 1–7.) As a factual matter, it is indisputable that all three of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are developed, produced, manufactured, or tested using aborted fetal cell lines. Public health agencies have confirmed these connections. For example, the North Dakota Department of Health, in its handout literature for those considering one of the COVID-19 vaccines, notes the following: “The non-replicating viral vector vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson did require the use of fetal cell cultures, specifically PER.C6, in order to produce and manufacture the vaccine.” N.D. Health, COVID19 Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines (Apr. 20, 2021), https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20Vaccine%20Page/COVID- Unlawful Denials of Religious Exemptions September 22, 2021 19_Vaccine_Fetal_Cell_Handout.pdf (emphasis added) (last visited Sept. 22, 2021). The Louisiana Department of Health likewise confirms that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine used the PER.C6 fetal cell line, which “is a retinal cell line that was isolated from a terminated fetus in 1985.” La. Dep’t of Public Health, You Have Questions, We Have Answers: COVID-19 Vaccine FAQ (Dec. 21, 2020), https://ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/Center-PHCH/CenterPH/immunizations/You_Have_Qs_COVID-19_Vaccine_FAQ.pdf (emphasis added) (last visited Sept. 22, 2021).
In the 14-page letter, Liberty Counsel goes on …
The same is true of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines. The Louisiana Department of Health’s publications again confirm that aborted fetal cells lines were used in the “proof of concept” phase of the development of their mRNA vaccines. See La. Dep’t of Public Health, supra. The North Dakota Department of Health likewise confirms: “Early in the development of mRNA vaccine technology, fetal cells were used for ‘proof of concept’ (to demonstrate how a cell could take up mRNA and produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein) or to characterize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.” N.D. Health, supra (emphasis added).
In addition to demanding evidence pertaining to the challenge be preserved, Liberty Counsel offered the following:
Liberty Counsel is giving SIH the opportunity to grant the religious exemption requests of Employees 1–7 without litigation. To avoid litigation, SIH must provide, prior to Thursday, September 23, at 5:00 P.M., SIH’s assurances that:
1) SIH has granted the religious exemption requests of Employees 1–7 and notified them of their granted exemptions;
2) SIH will not deny (and will reverse any prior denial of) any religious exemption request where the request is based on an employee’s sincere religious objection to receiving the COVID-19 vaccines developed, tested, produced, or otherwise connected to aborted fetal cell lines, or from receiving any of the COVID-19 vaccines if such act conflicts with any other sincerely held religious belief;
3) SIH will not deny (and will reverse any prior denial of) any religious exemption request based on the absence of approval or acknowledgement of the employee’s religious beliefs by a third party;
4) SIH will not deny (and will reverse any prior denial of) any religious exemption request based on any stated or perceived different beliefs by any religious denomination or organization;
5) SIH will not deny (and will reverse any prior denial of) any religious exemption request based on an employee’s past vaccination or other health decisions or the employee’s theological reasons for those decisions;
6) SIH will not deny (and will reverse any prior denial of) any religious exemption request based on SIH’s distinction between a religious exemption and a workplace religious accommodation to the extent that SIH’s classification of a request based on this distinction results in a less favorable outcome for the employee; and
7) SIH will not deny any religious exemption request without providing specific reasons for the denial, and will provide specific reasons for denial at the request of any previously denied employee.
