A post-pandemic tension between public safety and individual liberties has infused Florida’s ongoing effort to balance vaccine mandates and parental choice. A pending bill would broaden the state’s current religious exemption to include allowances for “conscience.” Opponents, however, fear the expansion will expose unvaccinated children to disease risks.
In September, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made national headlines when he called for eliminating all vaccine mandates in the Sunshine State. To date, no legislation has been introduced to remove existing mandates for public school students. Dr. Ladapo has reportedly stated, “Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
Children stand at the contentious intersection between alleged disease risks and perceived vaccine injury. Florida’s legislative battle pits these two sides against one another, with parental choice, informed consent, and children’s health occupying the political epicenter of an often-heated exchange. Similarly, differing versions and amendments to the law raise issues of whether doctors should be free to refuse unvaccinated children as patients or face discrimination charges for not accepting them.
Unsurprisingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has advocated for stronger mandates and freedom for physicians to deny healthcare. A recent lawsuit by Children’s Health Defense charges AAP with conflicts of interest, seeking recovery under civil RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statutes. AAP’s Florida Chapter president, Doctor Rana Alissa, reportedly asserted that physicians “seeing unvaccinated patients can put other children in danger.”
(From left to right: Russell Brand, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, Claire Dooley, LN author John Klar. Moms Across America Founder Zen Honeycutt) Photo by Jacqui Klar
Polls show a dramatic spike in parents choosing not to vaccinate their children since the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics of vaccine skepticism claim vaccines are the greatest gift to mankind since sliced white bread and blame supposed conspiracy theorists for spreading disinformation. More and more parents, however, point to myocarditis and other conditions impacting the youth in the wake of mRNA vaccines, and are looking more askance at other vaccines that were once considered sacrosanct. The Make America Healthy Again movement has highlighted the importance of healthy diets and exercise, rather than pharmaceutical interventions, as the best way to bolster children’s immune systems against infectious diseases. For them, suspect vaccine mandates are, like white bread, not as beneficial as once thought.
Scientific trust collides with constitutional guarantees in disputes like Florida’s. Dubious claims about mRNA vaccine safety and efficacy sowed increased parental hesitancy surrounding childhood vaccines, prompting many Democratic states to eliminate longstanding religious and other vaccine exemptions. The US Supreme Court has declined to intervene.
Ironically, the more that blue states negate constitutional protections to force vaccines on children, the more that oppositional parents withdraw their children and homeschool them. This vicious cycle cannot be blamed on parents who are justifiably concerned about industry overreach and their children’s long-term health. Draconian government diktats prompt parents to balk in distrust as their freedoms and parental rights are diminished under unpersuasive health-and-safety arguments. You can lead these horses to water with reasoned arguments, but compulsion won’t make them drink.
A West Virginia dispute over vaccine mandates has been working its way up the legal ladder even as Florida’s legislature quibbles. In oral arguments on January 27 in the case of Krystle Perry v. Stacy Marteney, a judge argued in favor of compulsory vaccinations without the benefit of parental choice:
“You can say, well, this is just a minor exception, but it will unleash a torrent of free exercise challenges to innumerable mandatory vaccination laws,” Judge James Harvie Wilkinson III said in arguments before the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. “This is just the first step. Is this not?”
Such arguments invite parents to raise the reverse slippery slope: Refusing exemptions to parents is the first step toward government autocracy. The proverbial shoe on the other foot inquires: What happened to “My body, my choice”?
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to undertake more thorough research and greater transparency regarding vaccines and has cautiously reduced the number of federally recommended vaccines for children. Many opposing states have declared they will take matters into their own hands (with advice from the industry-influenced AAP, of course). The parental rights battleground has consequently shifted stateside. The HHS has emphasized the need for states to respect parental decision-making as well as religious and other exemption rights. Many are embracing the opposite tactic.
Florida’s effort to expand exemptions reflects another liberty interest. As the nation has become increasingly secularized, many wise voices argue that scientism has become a new state religion and that “faith” in vaccines has eclipsed trust in God. Yet government requirements that demand parents identify and justify a religious ground for claiming an exemption may be artificial and intrusive in their own right. Such decisions are matters of conscience, not limited to theological defenses. Surely an atheist could claim they are a Catholic to avoid jabs. But why should non-religious parents be deprived of a liberty available to those of faith, and how can the state equitably regulate such subjective matters?
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