Former ESPN reporter Allison Williams, who was forced out of her job because she wouldn’t get the COVID jab, said President Joe Biden’s attitude toward vaccine mandates and medical freedom is dangerous to the integrity of the United States.
“I have never been so jarred by anything a president has said, and I know Trump said some really crazy things, but to hear the leader of the free world stand up and say, ‘This isn’t about your freedom,’ I thought, oh my God. It is always about our freedom,” Williams said on Thursday’s episode of SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.” This country exists on the principle of freedom. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave, and if we don’t have freedom over our own bodies, if our bodily autonomy is not respected, this God-given Constitutionally protected right to determine what we do with our bodies, we aren’t free.”
“That was something a dictator says. That is not something a leader of free people says,” Williams added.
Williams left her job as an ESPN sideline reporter after the company tried to medically coerce her into getting the COVID-19 jab while she and her husband are trying to get pregnant with their second child.
“Everybody acts like, ‘OK, this was your choice. You chose not to get it, so go get a different job.’ That’s not consent; that’s coercion,” Williams told Kelly. “Consent is fundamental to everything we do if we want to be a free people. … And that is why I think it’s so important for people to realize this is bigger than this mandate. This is bigger than this shot. There is something at play here that I don’t know what it is, but it is chipping away at the very foundation of which this country was built on.”
Not only did ESPN, which claims to be a “family,” deny Williams an exemption, but they also refused to allow her to continue in her “dream job” remotely.
“I mean, I walked away from the largest contract in my career, and it was contingent on me getting an injection, which I was morally, ethically, and medically opposed to,” Williams said. “So when it came down to it, I knew I couldn’t get it, and when they denied my request for accommodation, I was very surprised because I had hosted for them in the past. And I had hosted virtually, so I didn’t know why I couldn’t continue to host shows virtually without causing an undue burden on the company, but they did not see it that way. I have to live with that decision.”
Williams said ESPN’s decision not to give her an exemption is a dangerous example of what happens when health care becomes politicized.
“They’re essentially taking away what they believe is best for you because of the bureaucracy and the pressure that happens when you involve politics in medicine. And this is a really dangerous space to occupy. And it scares me that people are not only supporting this but encouraging it. Medical decisions need to be for individuals, not for the population en masse,” Williams said
