As evidence mounts that vaccines do little to prevent transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19, a group of Chicago firefighters and other city employees at risk of losing their jobs say federal judges would be well within their power to step in and require Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to offer some proof that their vaccine mandates actually accomplish their stated public health goals, before continuing to trample workers’ rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.
On March 7, attorney Jonathan Lubin, of Skokie, filed a brief in the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, asking the judges to overturn a lower court’s decision that the response to the COVID pandemic provides sufficient constitutional cover to Lightfoot and others to fire workers who refuse to receive a COVID vaccine.
“There is a point, even during the pandemic, when the Constitution’s protections of liberty once again overcome mitigation measures aimed at addressing COVID-19,” Lubin wrote on behalf of the Chicago city workers.
“That time has long since come and passed. It is time for the two weeks to flatten the curve to finally end.”
Last fall, Lubin filed suit in federal court on behalf of the group of workers from Chicago’s city fire, water and transportation departments, asking a federal judge to block Pritzker and Lightfoot from ordering them to take a COVID jab or risk losing their jobs.
In their lawsuit, the workers assert the mandates violate their constitutional rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, as well as their rights to due process by not being given the opportunity to demonstrate prior COVID infection had provided them with natural immunity, at least as good as the protection purported to be offered by any of the approved COVID vaccines.
He said the workers’ arguments are undone by a “core flaw:” That workers’ rights to refuse a COVID vaccine is not a “fundamental right” that supersedes the city’s and state’s interests in attempting to protect the “health and welfare of others in the community.”
The workers appealed Lee’s decision to the Seventh Circuit Appeals Court, as they continue to pursue a court order that would allow them to keep their jobs.
In their latest filing, Lubin and the workers assert their rights to privacy and bodily and autonomy should be considered as fundamental as other privacy rights, such as those recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in determining the Constitution affords women a right to abortion.
They pointed to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Casey v Planned Parenthood, in which they said the high court determined that even an unborn human being’s right to life is “subordinate to the right to privacy and bodily autonomy” of the mother.
Further, Lubin argued, the city cannot demonstrate the vaccines it is mandating actually help the city achieve its goals of reducing the spread of COVID-19, particularly given the dominance of the omicron variant of the COVID virus, which has demonstrated sustained abilities to evade vaccines and natural immunity, alike.
“To suggest that the theoretical (and, at this point, extremely dubious) impact that forcing COVID-19 vaccination may have on public health is somehow more intertwined public health than the question of whether to terminate a potential life in the womb is a mistake,” Lubin wrote. “That right is fundamental.”
Further, Lubin urged the court to step in and stop Pritzker, Lightfoot and others from continuing to impose mandates by executive orders, pointing to the state’s Emergency Management law, sidestepping lawmakers and legislative bodies altogether.
Lubin argued, after two years, COVID can no longer legally be considered an emergency requiring such executive rule.
“Only emergencies implicate the Illinois Emergency Management Act,” Lubin wrote. “COVID-19 may present a serious issue for residents if the State of Illinois (sic), even now… But it is no longer an emergency.
“At some point in the last two years, the legislature could have been prevailed upon to offer specific legislation about COVID-19, vaccines, and any other issue of importance. For the Governor to still be exercising emergency powers two years after the beginning of the pandemic is an affront to the democratic process.”
The same reasoning should apply to Lightfoot’s so-called emergency rules, Lubin said.
Lubin asked the appeals panel to overturn Lee’s decision, and order an injunction be granted.