COVID mRNA injections are immoral but so are most mandatory alternative testing requirements. This post deals with the immorality of mandatory COVID testing requirements, which COVID-happy employers are more frequently offering as an “alternative” to getting jabbed.
Many employers think they can avoid legal problems and mass layoffs while still adhering to the most important sacramental dogma of the COVID religion—the “vaccine.” They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to appear docile and compliant with the cultural COVIDIAN cult, while still actually retain good employees and make a profit. It’s a sham and a fraud.
The protype for this scheme was Joe Biden’s OSHA mandate that the U.S. Supreme Court recently partially struck down, at least as it applies to most businesses. Healthcare workers are still screwed, apparently. But just because SCOTUS said Biden could not impose this disaster using OSHA regulations doesn’t relieve those employees across the nation whose employers voluntary choose to impose these mandates on their employees. For simplicity’s sake, I will use the Biden mandate as an example of a typical employment policy. The core of the mandate states as follows according to the White House press brief:
“All covered employers must ensure that their employees have received the necessary shots to be fully vaccinated – either two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson – by January 4th. After that, all covered employers must ensure that any employees who have not received the necessary shots begin producing a verified negative test to their employer on at least a weekly basis.”
So, notice how this policy works. The employee still retains an option. The employee can either choose to get vaccinated OR the employee can choose to get tested at least on a weekly basis. That’s where the “choice” in this policy ends. That’s also where the moral rub comes in.
I will focus on two moral objections that I perceive to complying with the alternative mandatory testing requirements. Before I address the moral issues, it is important to acknowledge the legal background.
A Brief Legal Overview
Freedom from unwanted touching has been a cornerstone of the American legal system since its founding and even before. Under English common law, even just touching someone without their consent was considered battery.
This legal foundation extended into constitutional law as well. The Supreme Court in Washington v. Glucksberg reiterated that the right to refuse medical treatment
“was not simply deduced from abstract concepts of personal autonomy, but was instead grounded in the Nation’s history and traditions, given the common-law rule that forced medication was a battery, and the long legal tradition protecting the decision to refuse unwanted medical treatment.”
Even the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) acknowledges the dignity and bodily autonomy of employees. Concerning types of illegal discrimination, the ADA provides that employers “shall not require a medical examination . . . unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(d)(4)(A).
This is not just an American thing. Informed consent before undergoing medical treatment, tests and experimentation has been a cornerstone of international law for decades; it was a key component of the Nuremberg Code of 1947.
Many pro-COVID vaxxers have argued that the Nuremberg Code does not apply because it does not specifically refer to vaccines and is limited to only human medical experimentation. This is quite a legalistic and disingenuous way to understand the Code. It’s hard to imagine how medical experimentation on human beings can take place if the victims do not have to undergo medical procedures or testing. Even the United Nations in its Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights states:
“Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice (emphasis added).” (Article 6, 1)
While I highlighted just some of the legal prohibitions on involuntary medical testing above, I really wanted to focus on the moral and ethical aspects of requiring employees to undergo COVID 19 testing in order to keep their job or career and support a family.
Moral Problem 1: Involuntary Medical Testing Violates Bodily Integrity
The Church’s teaching on bodily integrity lines up with the idea that our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul says:
“Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
This is consistent with the Fifth Commandment prohibition on physically harming others. Under the 5th Commandment section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it prohibits medical experimentation on human beings without informed consent (CCC 2295) and seeks to guard bodily integrity from various physical harms (CCC 2297).
Even before the horrors of the holocaust, Pope Pius XI reiterated man’s right to life and bodily integrity. (Divini Redemptoris 1937, para. 27).
Mandatory medical testing, regardless of how invasive it is (and I would argue frequent nasal swabbing is quite invasive) violates one’s bodily integrity if not done so voluntarily.
Moral Problem 2: Mandatory Alternate Testing Requires Material Cooperation with Evil
Notice how this mandate works. What gives it teeth? Such a policy can only work if the employee is limited to choosing between the COVID shot and getting tested frequently. The employee is required to choose between two forms of medical interventions in order to keep their job.
There are always three components of a moral act: object, intention, and circumstances. If there is evil involved in any of these three components, then the act is an evil one. The object involves WHAT the act is (i.e. is the act in itself wrong), the intent is the mind frame of the actor (did he wish to do evil?), and the circumstances involve the surrounding facts or conditions under which the act took place. For examples of how to apply these moral principles, check out this article by Brother Andre Marie.
In connection with mandatory COVID shot/testing policies, it is pretty clear that the current “vaccines” on the market are in and of themselves immoral because they were developed and tested using aborted baby cell lines. I have addressed that issue many times before on this blog and won’t do so here.
But what about the requirement to test? If my employer gives me the chance to not inject myself with the aborted-tainted mRNA injection and simply get tested instead, that should be a morally acceptable option, right?
The problem with mandatory COVID employer testing is not that the object or even the intention of the employee who submits to the testing is immoral (unlike the vaccine) but the circumstances surrounding the requirement to get tested renders it immoral.
First consider the goal of the policy. The goal for these employers, certainly for Joe Biden’s policy, is to coerce as many employees as possible to inject themselves with the current available COVID “vaccines”. Biden’s press statement said as much:
“Today, the Biden Administration is announcing the details of two policies to fight COVID-19 that will drive even more progress and result in millions of Americans getting vaccinated, protecting workers, preventing hospitalization, saving lives, and strengthening the economy.”
The testing requirement is a key component of the mandatory vaccine policy. The employee is being forced into either getting the COVID shot or get tested frequently. There is no other way out of making that decision to avoid being fired. If the goal of the policy is to get as many individuals vaccinated, then the testing component of the policy is in reality being used as a stick to compel employees into choosing to get the shot, especially when the testing is onerous, frequent and invasive. This forces each employee into materially cooperating with a policy that is designed to promote the immoral abortion-tainted COVID shot.
As an employee, your participation in the vax or test policy is an important part in reaching the goal of vaccinating as many people as possible to be successful. If too many employees opt out of both taking the shot and getting tested, then the policy is rendered sterile and becomes only an optional request. The employee, even if they choose not to get the shot, essentially becomes a tool of the employer to achieve an immoral goal. The overall policy, which relies on the testing requirement, is immoral. If the employee participates in any way, such an employee is materially cooperating with evil.
Therefore, while the test itself may not be immoral (the object), the circumstances surrounding the requirement to get tested are immoral, which would put the employee in the position of materially cooperating with evil. If the circumstances surrounding the testing policy is like the one Biden is imposing, then an employee cannot in good conscience submit to mandatory testing.
Answers to Common Objections
In reply to the arguments above, you many encounter some common objections. One counter argument is that the mandatory employment COVID testing is freely done with consent because the employee is otherwise free to quit their job and work somewhere else.
That’s a curious contention. Is being required to give up a job that allows you to support your family, perhaps a 20-30 year career, or even just taking a pay cut for being unwilling to undergo a medical test that has nothing to do with your ability to do your job totally acceptable?
Well, most people certainly do not think it is okay to threaten job loss for not having sexual relations with a superior, or to coerce someone into handing you their purse at gun point. Oh, you say! Those are extreme cases because rape and murder are much more severe than simple spit testing or nasals swabs!
What about threatening to destroy someone’s personal reputation without any physical harm in exchange for money? Most people, including our own society before COVID, used to recognize that blackmail of any type is wrong. Why? Because the coercive threat results in a person performing an act they otherwise would not wish to do—in other words, it’s not really voluntary.
Yet again, another objection arises. Doesn’t an employee agree to follow the rules of the employer in order to maintain employment? Putting aside legal employment status (i.e. at-will employment or union protected contracts), every modern employment relationship constitutes a contract, an agreement of some sort between employer and employee. Most of those employees faced with either getting the shot or tested to avoid losing their job did not agree to submit themselves to medical testing as a condition of employment when they were hired. These rules, which in most cases have nothing to do with the ability of an employee to perform their job, were unilaterally imposed by the employer on the unwilling employee who is in a position of weakness in the contract relationship. So no, the employee is not giving free consent to their employers simply by entering into an employment relationship.
One final objection I will address that may arise is the contention that employers need to conduct such testing to ensure the safety of other employees and customers. That’s on its face false when you allow your office staff to work from home or remotely. But even where there is physical interaction among employees and customers, everyone agrees, even the CDC, that those who received the COVID shots can get and spread COVID. The CDC still recommends that those who are “fully vaccinated” still undergo screening tests.
So why would those who choose to get the shot not have to test? The answer is because an employer who enforces a policy like Biden’s is not being honest—they don’t care about safety at all—what they care about is getting as many people “vaccinated” as possible. Remember, they already told you that was the point of the policy. The policy itself is intentionally designed to force you and others into getting vaxxed, which is why it is immoral to participate in.
To conclude, the immorality of mandatory COVID testing policies, like the one Biden is attempting to impose on the nation, can be summarized using two arguments. First, it is immoral to require another person to submit to medical testing or procedures against their will as it violates the bodily integrity of the individual. Second, the mandatory testing policy is immoral because it forces the employee to materially cooperate with the employer’s universal policy designed to force others into receiving the abortion-tainted COVID shots.
As the legal and moral battles against these unjust employment policies continue, I hope we keep these principles in mind because any compromise with evil simply encourages more of the same.