English Question: Are Vaccine Mandates Lawful?  

Topic Selection and Thesis Statement

My chosen topic for this research is a subject matter that has dominated the news and public debate lately, vaccine mandates. The Biden administration recently shared its intention to impose a set of stringent federal requirements in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The federal vaccine mandates would apply to as many as 100 million Americans or 2/3 of the American workplace. The vaccine mandates require businesses with 100 or more workers to mandate their workers to either get tested for COVID-19 once a week or get vaccinated (Subramaniam, 2021).

The topic is interesting because of the arguments on both sides of the political divide. Republican politicians, including Florida and Texas governors, are on record opposing the mandates, describing the mandates as an attempt of the federal government to infringe on citizens' personal liberties.

The working thesis of the research paper reads: While the liberty-centric arguments against vaccine mandates have a sound philosophy, they are not conscious of the peculiar nature of the COVID-19 pandemic (the scientific evidence that supports vaccination as the best way of fighting COVID-19) and the legal precedence that affirms the use of vaccine mandates as part of public health measures to protect citizens such as previous cases on vaccine mandates (like the 1905 Supreme Court decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts and Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The paper intends to demystify the misguided right-wing arguments on vaccine mandates by informing readers on the objective truths about vaccine mandates. As such, it will be an informative paper.