Justin Bullock, FISM News

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Supreme Court Justice Amy Cohen Barrett denied an appeal for emergency injunction from students at Indiana University who are suing the school for mandating that all students and employees be vaccinated before the start of classes on August 23. This is the first time the mandated vaccine issue has come before the Court and it is expected that many more similar cases will be at issue in the near future. It is important to note that only the emergency appeal for injunction was turned down by Justice Barrett, the actual underlying lawsuit over the substantive merits of the case is still ongoing.

Justice Barrett unilaterally made the decision to deny the injunction appeal and did not refer it to the larger Supreme Court or issue a statement or opinion in response. This confused many conservatives as they saw the case as a great opportunity to set precedent in preserving American freedom and rights. However, some legal experts have indicated that the issue is more nuanced than it immediately appears to be.

Justice Barrett’s decision simply to deny the emergency injunction seems to be a good reference point for conservatives with respect to the upcoming abortion case that will be heard before the Supreme Court later this year. This is because the IU students, in their appeal for emergency injunction, used important arguments as well as a philosophy of jurisprudence that would, in the context of abortion, provide a strong precedent for preservation of the legal status of abortion.

The students argued in their appeal, “All students are adults, are entitled to make their own medical treatment decisions, and have a constitutional right to bodily integrity, autonomy, and of medical treatment choice…” Conservative legal experts have pointed out that this language and argument is used by abortion advocates today and that if Justice Barrett had granted the emergency injunction, it could have established such jurisprudence as an important precedent for the Court before the separate upcoming abortion case had been resolved.