The Supreme Court declined Thursday to take a COVID-19 vaccine mandate case from the state of New York in which health care workers were seeking a religious exemption from being required to get vaccinated.
The court voted by a count of 6-3 not to take the case, after opting in December not to grant an emergency request to pause the requirement, according to The Associated Press. The three dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.
In addition to those three grants, SCOTUS declines review in a challenge to New York’s vaccine mandate for health care workers.
Here is today’s full order list: https://t.co/qMLDSlJlLh— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 30, 2022
Doctors and nurses who were subjected to the mandate had claimed they were being forced to make a choice between adhering to their religious beliefs not to get the coronavirus vaccine or losing their jobs. Only three states in the U.S. have a health care worker vaccine mandate with no religious exemption provision: New York, Maine and Rhode Island, according to The AP
The same three justices, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch, dissented previously in a similar case regarding Maine’s vaccine mandate, according to The AP. (RELATED: Fauci Says He Doesn’t Regret Missing His Kids’ Childhoods Because His Work Is So Important)
The decision was a rare victory from the court for Democrats as of late. Several major decisions, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the striking down of a gun control law in New York, have been decided to the preference of conservatives in recent days.