People do not care about a group of people or a situation until it directly affects them or someone close to them.
I have been saying this to people for a very long time. The military, health, and/or education: these are all areas that we don’t really spend much time thinking about until they directly affect our lives. We (collective) start to care about the military (or wars) when someone we know joins or is about to be deployed. We start to care about our health when the doctor gives you bad news. We don’t really care about the educational system until our kids are in it and we see behind the curtain. It may be part of human nature because there are so many things that take place in our day to day lives. If we spent all of our mental bandwidth on every topic, our lives would be chaos.
This, however, is not an excuse or a pass to not look into things that don’t affect you. At one point or another, everything does enter your family circle and it may be wise to be proactive instead of reactive. Why wait to be told you have a weight related health issue to lose weight?
I will never change the world, country, state, or whatever town I reside in. I can make changes in my own life and that is it. My long-winded rants I know go unread by many and I know even fewer actually care what I have to say. However, if I have any hope, it is that something I say might get a wheel turning in someone’s mind that may not have happened if I stayed quiet. That may affect change elsewhere…it may not. I would never know if I kept my mouth shut all the time.
At this point, it shouldn’t be a secret about how Crystal and I feel about the governmental response to SARS-CoV-2, nor should it be a secret how we feel about personal health. We feel that our personal health is the ONE thing that we as humans get to be selfish about. Without our own good health, we are less than useful to others. It is up to the individual to make choices that affect his health, and these choices can’t be forced. I cannot make you not drink soda: sure, if I was by your side for every waking second, I could but that isn’t reality.
So many people have spent a lot of time and money incentivizing only ONE option to fight SARS-CoV-2 (I can’t write the word without having a label applied to this essay). In the beginning, it was just funny or ridiculous to many people. For some of us, it was disgusting, and we saw where this could head. That time is here, and I will tie this back in to where I started. Some people predicted that the one “option” would eventually be required to be a part of everyday life. Those people were laughed at and told that would never happen. Well, it is here now, and it is starting with healthcare workers.
Crystal works for Lehigh Valley Health Network (specifically their Physicians Group) as an ultrasound tech. They have spent over a month sending out emails to employees saying that “Unvaccinated colleagues who interact with others are putting those individuals at risk”. Sure, it was perfectly fine to interact with others for the last nineteen months, and worked harder than ever before, but moving forward it is now dangerous.
Pennsylvania is one of 44 states that allow for the filing of a religious exemption in the workplace and LVHN did allow for that to happen. To be clear, the legal definition of a religious belief in the United States is stated as being "not merely a matter of personal preference, but one of deep religious conviction, shared by an organized group, and intimately related to daily living" (1) according to US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
LVHN stated on the 9th of August 2021, that medical exemptions would be reviewed by Employee Health Services and religious exemptions would be reviewed by Legal Services. Crystal’s exemption (along with many others) was denied two business days after being submitted. The lawyer stated that her objections were “factually incorrect”. The mistake he made was that Crystal did not check the box or write that she had an objection to the ingredients of the current “options”. She had stated clearly that her sincerely held religious beliefs are based on the Word of God, that her body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that it is not hers to do with as she pleases with (2). Going on, she wrote that while her objections were not of the ingredients, but that of the development and testing practices that used cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. Going above and beyond what was required, Crystal also provided links to government (3, 4, 5) and educational sources (6), as well as to Janssen (7), the company responsible for making one of the currently available “options”.
So now what? The lawyer told Crystal there is no appeal and that the decision is final. According to LVHN, all employees (and contractors that work for LVHN, like elevator repair) must have either been approved for an exemption or initiated their “option” series by the 14th of September. A final warning goes out to those that have done neither and then they will be considered resigned on the 28th of September if they do not comply. I want to be clear: we do not want any pity over this. We knew this was coming and have done our best to prepare for the times ahead. We want you to know what is going on. What LVHN, and many others, is doing is very illegal by hoping to coerce enough people so they don’t crumble with the loss of employees. There are many who are prepared to stand their ground in this scenario and Crystal is one of them. Remember that legal definition of a religious belief? Her exemption wasn’t just part of a fad to get out of doing something: it is part of her life, and she will not falter from her beliefs.
For many, this may be the first hardship they will have to endure. Some nurses are in their early twenties and fresh out of school. Some are close to retirement, and more are working in this position for the medical benefits for their families. There are a lot of emotions surrounding this, especially for Crystal, and ultimately, even if LVHN decides to change course at the last minute to retain employees, the trust lost due to this policy will never be regained. The public deserves to know what one of the largest health networks in the area is doing to its employees. These employees are your neighbors, your health providers, your children, your siblings, your friends, and the parents of the friends of your children. They aren’t evil people: they are people that are making a personal choice for their individual health and ultimately being punished for making that choice. Not one employee will be let go because they choose not to wear a seatbelt on their way to work. Not one will be let go for the excessive drinking they do after work or the cigarettes that go with.
Whether or not this discrimination is intentional is not my decision to make. I have my opinion and it is mine. It is also the decision of the EEOC and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically Title VII: section 703 outlines Unlawful Employment Practices and states:
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (8)
If this can happen in a health network, then it can and will happen in other businesses in every town and every state in the US. It can only be fought together: you do not have to agree with someone’s position to fight for their right to have that position. Those left in the network will be left to pick up the workload and too will suffer longer hours and busier schedules. We truly are all in this together and need to push back.
