(Credit: tilialucida/Adobe Stock) Ex-Nurse's 'Individualized, Idiosyncratic Religion' Claims Against COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Allowed to Proceed, Judge Rules
"Here, the plaintiff has alleged that a core principle of being 'Pagan' is submitting to natural forces and refusing artificial medical aid," U.S. Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote. "She has asserted that the mRNA technology used to develop some of the COVID-19 vaccines makes them unnatural and impermissible, as distinct from the virus-derived annual flu vaccine. That asserted connection is sufficient to support a plausible claim that accepting at least some of the COVID-19 vaccines would violate a tenet of her idiosyncratic religion."
September 18, 2024 at 11:14 AM
4 minute read
A former nurse's complaint of religious discrimination against the Boston Medical Center for opposing the COVID-19 vaccine can continue, a federal judge held Tuesday, determining that her "individualized and idiosyncratic" form of Paganism constitutes a religious belief, rather than a personal or medical stance.
The ex-nurse, Amy Munroe, represented by attorneys with Bobrowski & Vickery in Amherst, Massachusetts, worked as an employee of the Boston hospital for over 20 years. Munroe, was terminated in October 2021, after the hospital denied her religious accommodation to its COVID-19 vaccine. Munroe claims her religion is an individual form of Paganism, that Mother Nature is her God and that she "does not 'participate in' Western medicine, among other things, according to the case captioned Munroe v. Boston Medical Center.
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