Dr. Aaron Kheriaty on COVID vaccine mandates, conscience rights, and medical ethics
We live in a time in which coercion in public health policy threatens to corrupt medical ethics. Efforts to combat the pandemic acerbated this trend — for example, vaccine mandates — but it did not start with COVID. For years, the medical establishment has been at war with “medical conscience,” that is, pushing polices that would force doctors to participate in abortion, assisted suicide, and transgender transition interventions—even when they have religious objections or don’t wish to participate because they accept the maxims of the Hippocratic Oath. Meanwhile, Catholic hospitals are under unprecedented threat to force these important institutions to adopt the ethics of secular medicine.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty is at the center of these contentious social controversies. A Professor of Psychiatry at University of California Irvine School of Medicine, Dr. Kheriaty joins Wesley to discuss the federal lawsuit he filed when told to either accept the COVID vaccine or face the loss of his job — even though he previously had recovered from the disease and had natural immunity against further infection. Kheriaty discusses the details of his case, the reasons he has for resisting the vaccine specifically, and the campaign within the medical establishment to force doctors who believe in the Hippocratic Oath or accept a “pro-life” philosophy to choose between their profession and their consciences. It is an episode you won’t want to miss.