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(LifeSiteNews) – Medical ethicists Arthur Caplan and Sarah Hull said that unvaccinated people do not “have an inalienable ‘right’ to dine at restaurants, attend shows in a theater, and travel for leisure.”

Caplan is a medical ethicist at New York University and Hull is a medical ethicist at Yale University. Caplan previously said that people should not equate anti-life policies such as euthanasia to the policies of the Nazis, but later compared then-candidate Donald Trump to Hitler in an essay.

Speaking of vaccine mandates, Caplan and Hull criticized the “continued resistance to commonsense public health measures” which show “too many people in both Europe and the U.S. have a simplistic and erroneous view of liberty.” The essay appeared recently in MedPageToday, a medical news and commentary publication.

Referring to engaging in commerce, such as eating at a restaurant or going to a theater, the pair said it does not “make sense to conflate the concept of individual rights, which inform our liberties, with that of privileges, which are predicated on each of us upholding certain responsibilities.”

They said that barring American citizens from walking into their local Burger King without a vaccine passport is no different than having regulations on who can drive a car.

“The concept of requiring COVID-19 vaccination to access privileges involving social gathering similarly protects public health and prevents reckless individuals from harming others, particularly those who cannot receive vaccines due to age or underlying illness or those who are unable to respond to them due to immunodeficiency,” the pair argued.

They want to see a system similar to one implemented in France. It requires proof of vaccination to enter places such as nursing homes, restaurants and public transportation. The alternative is to frequently take and present proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

Hundreds of thousands of French citizens are protesting against this new “health pass” rule.

There is a growing chorus of voices in the U.S. calling for vaccine mandates and demanding the federal and state government make life difficult for unvaccinated individuals.

For example, former Planned Parenthood president and current CNN medical commentator Leana Wen said in July, “It needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated.”

“Right now, it’s kind of the opposite,” she said.

The White House recently mandated all federal workers take the experimental COVID-19 shot(s) or undergo testing for the virus twice a week. This violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, former director of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Roger Severino has noted.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes for Health (NIH), have signaled support for vaccine passports. Walensky said last week that forcing Americans to show proof of having received a COVID-19 shot to engage in ordinary life “may very well be the path forward.” 

In May, testifying before the U.S. Senate, Chief White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated only half of NIH employees had taken a coronavirus vaccine. Walesnsky said she doesn’t know how many CDC employees are vaccinated.

Meanwhile, “New York City is mandating proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter certain indoor businesses — including all indoor restaurants, entertainment venues and gyms, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday,” the New York Post reported August 3.

LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.