Dear [HR Department]:
[Employer] has directed me to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, or
suffer adverse employment action, up to and including termination.
However, I cannot receive a COVID-19 vaccine because to do so would violate
my sincerely held religious beliefs. All of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines
used cell lines originating from aborted children in their manufacturing or testing.
As a Christian, I believe that life begins at conception and ends at natural
death.
The Scriptures reveal that God knows us even before we are conceived. See
Jeremiah 1:4 – 5 (“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a
prophet to the nations.’”). And God’s creative powers are effectively at work while we
are yet in the womb. See Psalm 139:13 – 16 (“For you created my inmost being; you
knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not
hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in
the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for
me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”).
The Christian Church has condemned abortion – the killing of human infants
while in the womb – from earliest times. The Didache, a conduct code of the early
Christian community, dated by some as being as early as 70 AD, is in accord with
Scripture, stating: “[D]o not abort a foetus or kill a child that is born.” Loeb Edition
of the Apostolic Fathers (also translated as, “Thou shalt not murder a child by
abortion nor kill that which is begotten.”).
A Plea for Christians, written around AD177 by Athenagoras, stated, “[W]e say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion.”
Tertullian, in his Apologeticum, written in 197 AD, wrote: “Murder being once for all
forbidden, we [Christians] may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, . . .”
Hence it is my sincerely held religious belief that abortion is murder, a
violation of one of the Ten Commandments (“You shall not murder.” Exodus 20:13),
and, for that reason, it would violate my sincerely held religious beliefs to cooperate
with or be complicit in abortion in any way.
The COVID-19 vaccines were developed or tested using cell lines that were
generated or derived from tissues of aborted fetuses. J&J used an aborted fetal cell
line in manufacturing its COVID-19 vaccine, while Moderna and Pfizer used aborted
fetal cell lines in testing the efficacy of their vaccines. See James Lawler, MD, You
asked, we answered: Do the COVID-19 vaccines contain aborted fetal cells” Nebraska
Medicine, August 4, 2021, https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-weanswered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells.
So, it is my sincerely held religious belief that, in being vaccinated with any of
the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, I would be cooperating with and complicit
in abortion – the ending of an innocent human life – and that such would constitute
a sin against God and a violation of His Commandments, for which I would be held
morally accountable by God.
For that reason, I am requesting a religious accommodation, under Title VII
and any similar [state where employer located] state law(s), that will excuse me from
having to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and further request that no adverse
employment action be taken against me on account of my religious beliefs.
Thank you for your anticipated consideration.
Sincerely,
[Signature of Employee]
[Name of Employee]
[Date]
Received:
Name Date