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These are healthcare workers. Jobs have requirements. They're free to quit instead of increasing the dangers of disease for their sick and older patients who ar

These are healthcare workers. Jobs have requirements. They're free to quit instead of increasing the dangers of disease for their sick and older patients who are at highest risk for covid. No one is controlling their body any more than making it show up at work in order to get paid. Coal miners are forced to work in dangerous conditions around the world in order to keep their job. Getting a vaccine is far less risk, there have been 8 billion plus vaccine doses given against covid around the world.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago
so you'd be cool with employers banning employees who get an abortion. something, something, consequences.
- tfehring 5y ago
  If having had an abortion materially negatively impacted a healthcare worker's ability to safely provide healthcare to a sick person, then yes, that should probably be grounds for disallowing those people from working as healthcare practitioners. Thankfully that's not the case.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  That's actually quite likely legal already. If expect there are certain Catholic organizations who would fire you if you admitted to having had an abortion.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Your intuition is correct (in that there's no over-arching precedent or Constitutionally-derived right that makes it illegal), but it's specifically banned under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as per a 1978 law modifying the act. https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1978 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1... ... Which goes to the court ruling that's the topic of the article: Congress has the power to decide these issues.
- yissp 5y ago
  Having had an abortion doesn't affect your ability to safely do your job. Being unvaccinated does.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? how does it impact that employer?
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      > does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? To a significant degree. > what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? This case wasn't about them.
    - tfehring 5y ago
      > does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? It significantly reduces the likelihood that you spread it to your coworkers (and, perhaps more importantly, to the old and sick people that healthcare workers tend to serve). https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v... > what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? how does it impact that employer? Obviously vaccine requirements for remote workers don't make a ton of sense in principle, but in practice I worry that an exemption for remote employees would result in a lot of people getting mis-coded (intentionally or otherwise) as remote and ultimately showing up at work unvaccinated and putting vulnerable people at risk.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    How about if it's the 1960s, and you're a flight attendant, and "being sexy" is semi-officially part of your job. And your job is requiring you to get an abortion (which is still illegal in the US, and so you're going to have to go to Sweden to get it). And if you won't, well, nobody's making you - you can get a different job. This is, as far as I can see, the most directly analogous situation. Those who support vaccine mandates, how do you feel about this situation? (And note that this was just an "unofficial" employee mandate - there was no government entity involved.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamewar comments and otherwise breaking the site guidelines? You've unfortunately done it a lot lately. We ban that sort of account because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
gopalv 5y ago
> Jobs have requirements Most of the argument is whether this requirement is in the "employee must wash hands before surgery" category, which is about the patients' right to be safe not the employee's (in theory the patients didn't "choose" to be there). The people complaining are reacting as if the ruling sounds like "male high school teachers get vasectomies, to keep teenage pregnancies down", because the effects are "permanent, * upto six months" and directly to your body without it being an on-the-job requirement. The part that makes me leery is that these sort of "are your vaccines upto-date" checklists have always existed, but this time it is controversial (or maybe it was for MMR - but it wasn't news).
- odessacubbage 5y ago
  >checklists have always existed this is also the first time where the vaccine industry and the broader public health space have been put under this kind of scrutiny and the combination of politicization, outright lies and deception over masks and policy in both directions and the overall visibility of the sausage making process happens to be occurring alongside a decline of trust in institutional expertise. when most people got their tetanus shots, the faces of the medical profession were not acting as explicitly political agents.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I don't think you can argue that it's the medical profession's fault that this issue has become politicized without acknowledging that the GOP deserves most of the blame here. Nearly every common-sense measure implemented during this pandemic has been derided by the right as some sort of unacceptable infringement on individual rights. Not saying those in power have gotten it all right 100% of the time; I'm especially disappointed with the mask fiasco you mention, but... c'mon. Doctors are not acting as "political agents" in the vast majority of situations that have caused the US's pandemic response to be as lacking as it's been.
    - odessacubbage 5y ago
      frankly there is plenty of blame to go around among partisans starting with the complete and total looting of our pandemic response capabilities that occurred during the obama years or the bipartisan offshoring of nearly all our capacity to produce medical supplies and allowing consolidation to make hospitals utterly brittle in the face of a crisis. the lies and poor decisions are numerous enough from all sides that it really is not interesting to play the blame game about who is worse, residents of either team will always believe their lies were noble and mistakes justified while the 'other' is the source of all the real problems. the end result is the same, efficacy and legitimacy of administrators has cratered and i cannot honestly blame anyone who does not trust these institutions to act in good faith anymore.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

so you'd be cool with employers banning employees who get an abortion. something, something, consequences.

tfehring 5y ago
If having had an abortion materially negatively impacted a healthcare worker's ability to safely provide healthcare to a sick person, then yes, that should probably be grounds for disallowing those people from working as healthcare practitioners. Thankfully that's not the case.
joshuamorton 5y ago
That's actually quite likely legal already. If expect there are certain Catholic organizations who would fire you if you admitted to having had an abortion.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Your intuition is correct (in that there's no over-arching precedent or Constitutionally-derived right that makes it illegal), but it's specifically banned under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as per a 1978 law modifying the act. https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1978 https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1... ... Which goes to the court ruling that's the topic of the article: Congress has the power to decide these issues.
yissp 5y ago
Having had an abortion doesn't affect your ability to safely do your job. Being unvaccinated does.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? how does it impact that employer?
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    > does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? To a significant degree. > what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? This case wasn't about them.
  - tfehring 5y ago
    > does being vaccinated stop you from spreading it to your co-workers? It significantly reduces the likelihood that you spread it to your coworkers (and, perhaps more importantly, to the old and sick people that healthcare workers tend to serve). https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264260v... > what about all the WFH people mandated into vaccines? how does it impact that employer? Obviously vaccine requirements for remote workers don't make a ton of sense in principle, but in practice I worry that an exemption for remote employees would result in a lot of people getting mis-coded (intentionally or otherwise) as remote and ultimately showing up at work unvaccinated and putting vulnerable people at risk.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  How about if it's the 1960s, and you're a flight attendant, and "being sexy" is semi-officially part of your job. And your job is requiring you to get an abortion (which is still illegal in the US, and so you're going to have to go to Sweden to get it). And if you won't, well, nobody's making you - you can get a different job. This is, as far as I can see, the most directly analogous situation. Those who support vaccine mandates, how do you feel about this situation? (And note that this was just an "unofficial" employee mandate - there was no government entity involved.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
Would you please stop posting flamewar comments and otherwise breaking the site guidelines? You've unfortunately done it a lot lately. We ban that sort of account because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

gopalv 5y ago

> Jobs have requirements Most of the argument is whether this requirement is in the "employee must wash hands before surgery" category, which is about the patients' right to be safe not the employee's (in theory the patients didn't "choose" to be there). The people complaining are reacting as if the ruling sounds like "male high school teachers get vasectomies, to keep teenage pregnancies down", because the effects are "permanent, * upto six months" and directly to your body without it being an on-the-job requirement. The part that makes me leery is that these sort of "are your vaccines upto-date" checklists have always existed, but this time it is controversial (or maybe it was for MMR - but it wasn't news).

odessacubbage 5y ago
>checklists have always existed this is also the first time where the vaccine industry and the broader public health space have been put under this kind of scrutiny and the combination of politicization, outright lies and deception over masks and policy in both directions and the overall visibility of the sausage making process happens to be occurring alongside a decline of trust in institutional expertise. when most people got their tetanus shots, the faces of the medical profession were not acting as explicitly political agents.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I don't think you can argue that it's the medical profession's fault that this issue has become politicized without acknowledging that the GOP deserves most of the blame here. Nearly every common-sense measure implemented during this pandemic has been derided by the right as some sort of unacceptable infringement on individual rights. Not saying those in power have gotten it all right 100% of the time; I'm especially disappointed with the mask fiasco you mention, but... c'mon. Doctors are not acting as "political agents" in the vast majority of situations that have caused the US's pandemic response to be as lacking as it's been.
  - odessacubbage 5y ago
    frankly there is plenty of blame to go around among partisans starting with the complete and total looting of our pandemic response capabilities that occurred during the obama years or the bipartisan offshoring of nearly all our capacity to produce medical supplies and allowing consolidation to make hospitals utterly brittle in the face of a crisis. the lies and poor decisions are numerous enough from all sides that it really is not interesting to play the blame game about who is worse, residents of either team will always believe their lies were noble and mistakes justified while the 'other' is the source of all the real problems. the end result is the same, efficacy and legitimacy of administrators has cratered and i cannot honestly blame anyone who does not trust these institutions to act in good faith anymore.