Page 20 - December 2021

The constitutionality of vaccine mandates
On Oct. 8, the City of Chicago mandated that all employees must go on the infamous por-
tal to declare their vaccination status and
all employees must receive the COVID-19 vaccination by Dec. 31. As I am sure you
are aware, this has caused quite an up- roar with many of the individual employ- ees and the unions that represent them.
A reasonable reaction by most is to ques- tion the reasonableness of enforcing a person to inject something into their body. I believe a cer-
tain group of people have been telling us for years that it is “my body and my business” when defending other types of medical and very private procedures. Yet many of those same people are a little murky on the rule book when it comes to a forced vaccination policy. Even more intrusive are the recent executive order by President Biden mandating that certain federal employees be vaccinated and OSHA mandating that private companies with a certain number of employees must enforce the vaccination on its employees. The question that arises is, Are these mandates in line with the Constitution? The quick answer is maybe.
Our laws are based upon precedent, so we must look to how the United States Supreme Court has ruled in the past. The
seminal vaccination case is Jacobson v. Massachusetts, from all the way back to 1905. In the early part of the last centu- ry, the country was plagued by smallpox, especially in the Northeast. The state of Massachusetts instituted a mandatory vaccine policy for all people over the age of 21 and allowed the implementation of the mandate to be controlled by the local governments. The city of Cambridge instituted a required smallpox vaccination under penalties of criminal charges for those not vacci-
nated.
Reverend Jacobson had received vaccinations as a child and
according to him, it caused him a “lifelong horror.” Now, that does not sound very pleasant. The main argument of the good reverend was that the mandate was an invasion of his liberty and his rights and that he should not be required to get the vaccine if he objects, no matter his reasoning. The case wound its way to the United States Supreme Court, and unfortunately for Reverend Jacobson, his argument failed. The court noted that smallpox was a disease on the rise and that in the interest of the public safety, vaccinations were necessary to protect the general health of the citizens. This case stands for the posi- tion that the government, with few exceptions, could enforce a vaccine mandate that would protect the public.
Jacobson has been the law for more than 115 years. It has
TIM GRACE
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20 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2021