Health Freedom Defense Fund, California Educators for Medical Freedom, and the individual plaintiffs will appeal their lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) challenging the school district’s vaccine mandate.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs argued that COVID-19 injections are therapeutics, not vaccines, as they do not prevent infection or transmission. But this is not an empty assertion. In August of 2021, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated in an interview on CNN that COVID-19 injections do not stop transmission of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Additionally, data from all over the world confirm the vaccinated are just as likely to become infected with and transmit COVID to others as the unvaccinated.
CDC exhibited its own concern about the nature of the COVID-19 injections when it changed the official definition of a “vaccine” and of “immunity” to ensure that COVID injections would qualify, however, these new definitions contradict a century of understanding about the purpose and function of vaccines.
This point is critical as the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled in Cruzan vs. Director in 1990 that medical treatments may be refused even if they might save a recipient’s life.
However, this ruling has never been reconciled with a 1905 decision by the SCOTUS in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, in which the court decided that vaccines could be mandated in clearly defined and limited situations, such as a deadly small pox outbreak. But COVID is not small pox. What’s more, Jacobson allowed those who declined the vaccine to pay a fine – Jacobson did not allow the state to force a vaccine on unwilling recipients on pain of losing their livelihoods.
We made compelling arguments in the district court about why Cruzan, not Jacobson, should apply here but the district judge felt constrained by the Ninth Circuit precedent, so we are going to take the fight to that court—and then, if necessary, to the Supreme Court.
Worth noting is that Jacobson was decided in 1905, in a very different world than we live in today. In 1905, women were not permitted to vote and Jim Crow laws existed. In the decades since, our appreciation for basic human rights has advanced as reflected in the Nuremberg Code and the UNESCO Declaration on Human Rights and Bioethics acknowledging the ethical principle of voluntary informed consent.
Unfortunately, the US District Court granted LAUSD’s motion for judgement on the pleadings, stating that “Without further guidance from the Ninth Circuit, the Court declines to adopt case law applying strict scrutiny in cases of forced medical treatment to the COVID-19 vaccine context.”
In other words, the judge said she could not rule in our favor without getting the green light from a superior court.
As the basic right to bodily autonomy is one of the great issues of our day, we must appeal this ruling.
In addition, there are some procedural errors in the district court decision which must be addressed.
While this case pertains to the teachers and staff at LAUSD, our objective is to defend the most basic, fundamental, and indeed sacred right of bodily autonomy and this lawsuit has the potential to impact the nation’s thinking and practice surrounding this crucial subject.
Our Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Nowhere does that document nor the US Constitution state that any government entity has the right to plunge a needle into the arm of the citizenry and it is high time that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should vindicate this basic tenet of freedom.
For these reasons, we are appealing the District Court’s decision and are optimistic about the prospects.
