Ingo Rademacher, the star of ABC’s “General Hospital” show was recently fired from the series following his refusal to comply with the network’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Rademacher has worked in the show for almost 25 years and insists that the vaccination requirement is religious discrimination and against the spirit of the American constitution. He has filed a lawsuit against ABC over his termination.
When ABC mandated COVID-19 vaccines for its employees, the firm had promised to grant religious exemptions. On Oct. 11, Rademacher sent an email to the human resources department of ABC’s parent company Walt Disney, seeking an exemption from vaccination on religious grounds.
In the letter, Rademacher argued that his body is endowed by his Creator. Administering “artificially created copies of genetic material,” violates the sanctity of the natural integrity of the body, he said.
“This moral objection is in keeping with my rights of conscience articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Welsh v. U.S. (1970) 398 U.S. 333, 339–340. Discrimination against me on the basis of my religious values and rights of conscience is contrary to law and the Civil Rights Act. Disparate treatment of me on this basis is not permitted under State and federal law,” the letter stated.
Religious exemption denied
Officials at the company asked Rademacher to meet with one of their lawyers. On Nov. 5, his request for religious exemption was denied without an explanation and Rademacher’s contract was eventually terminated.
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Subsequently, he filed a lawsuit against the company, calling the network’s insistence on vaccination a violation of his right to privacy. “This should not be a political issue… There is no need for everybody to get the COVID-19 shot, even if the president demands it,” the complaint states.
In an interview with Fox News, the 50-year-old actor revealed that he had expected a vaccine mandate to be imposed by ABC given that other companies under Walt Disney had implemented such measures.
For Rademacher, the most important thing is “staying healthy and dying healthy.” By submitting to Disney’s vaccine mandate, a move that is strongly backed by the federal government, an individual will be giving up his body to Washington officials, he said.
‘I should be able to make that choice’
“Being injected with something like this COVID vaccine – personally, I don’t think I need it, and I think I should be able to make that choice… If we don’t choose what to put in our bodies, we don’t own our body. The government owns you… It’s so frustrating,” Rademacher said.
The actor hit back at some netizens are painting him as a “right-wing conservative nut,” which he says is far from the truth. Rademacher had earlier refused to call a transgender person a woman and described COVID-19 as the “Chinese coronavirus.”
According to Rademacher, there are a “lot of conservatives” on the show and many of them have extended their support. However, as they have not supported him publicly, Rademacher questions whether it is “really support?”Rademacher is being represented in the court by attorneys Scott Street, John Howard, and Robert F Kennedy Jr. in an email to The Defender, Street stated that “this case is about freedom, including freedom of religion and the right to privacy that all Californians have under our state constitution. Cases decided a hundred years ago don’t change that. The world has evolved since then. The law has evolved since then. We look forward to litigating those issues in court.”
