The vaccine wars unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic have not been limited to disputes about science, such as vaccine efficacy or safety. Uncharted constitutional waters shape differing views of individual liberties in state and federal courts as clashes over vaccine mandates, especially for young schoolchildren, are taking center stage. Parents of public school kids are increasingly taking refuge in religious exemptions to state laws. In turn, many state legislatures and courts are shutting down that First Amendment loophole in the name of public safety.
Vaccine Exemptions in Public Schools
As more parents have become concerned about potential injuries from quick-to-market products such as mRNA vaccines or an increase in recommended vaccines, many are choosing to protect their children from what they see as risky inoculation schedules. In an ironic twist, the success of some vaccination programs led many parents to avoid vaccination because the injections were perceived as unnecessary: Measles, for example, was declared wiped out in the United States in 2000, only to later return from abroad.
Parental concerns over the safety and effectiveness of novel COVID-19 vaccines have not dissipated over time, and wary parents have had to turn to the religious exemption to shield their children from government school vaccine mandates. As more parents hesitate to vaccinate their offspring, government authorities claim their worries are due to disinformation or misinformation.
The conflict has caused states to track medical and religious exemptions from school vaccination mandates. Unsurprisingly, a recent Maryland report reflects a growing trend in religious claims:
“The rising percent of religious exemptions in recent years may point to increasing rates of vaccine hesitancy among families, said Daniel Salmon, a professor and director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“’We’ve seen a post-COVID increase,’ Salmon said. ‘With COVID … things got really polarized with more misinformation and disinformation. Vaccinations became a very political topic. And that’s not helpful.’”
‘Vindicating’ the State’s Interest
The US Supreme Court recently declined to hear a Connecticut case concerning that state’s removal of its religious exemption. The State of Connecticut’s legal brief recites the cause:
“In 2021, confronted by skyrocketing claims of religious exemptions that compromised community (‘herd’) immunity and threatened disease outbreaks, Connecticut returned to its pre-1959 status quo. Data showed that the religious exemption was invoked at least an order of magnitude more often than the medical exemption, which only a negligible number of children claimed. So eliminating the religious exemption gave the State the best chance to vindicate its interest in improving student and community health by safeguarding herd immunity. ….four other states have eliminated their religious exemptions in the past few years – California, Maine, New York, and Connecticut.
“....Connecticut’s Public Health Commissioner explained in legislative testimony that ‘[n]umerous published studies indicate that higher rates of vaccine exemption in a school community drive lower vaccination rates and increase the risk of vaccine preventable disease in that community.’”
A Maine couple sued that state in federal district court for eliminating families’ religious exemptions from vaccine mandates for private and public school students. The District Court ruled on July 11 that Maine enjoyed sovereign immunity from any claims for ‘equitable reimbursement.’ Vermont’s highest court recently ruled that parents have no legal rights to sue when public school officials administer an experimental vaccine covered by the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act – even if the parents have expressly denied consent.
If public schools can administer vaccines with impunity despite parental objections, even states that still preserve religious exemptions for their school children are free to simply disregard parental wishes. Vaccine hesitancy will become public school hesitancy as distrust of Big Pharma extends to school officials.
Big Pharma Catch-22
Courts and government officials consistently employ a presumption of vaccine safety and efficacy in legal challenges. The argument is that public safety trumps individual liberties or even injuries. But this legal assertion depends on a factual conclusion that forms the very basis of concern.
Connecticut’s Attorney General exploited the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the plaintiff parents’ religious exemption case (a legal issue) as ‘proof’ of the medical bona fides of the government’s vaccine mandates:
“This is the end of the road to a challenge to Connecticut’s lifesaving and fully lawful vaccine requirements. We have said all along, and the courts have affirmed-- the legislature acted responsibly and well within its authority to protect the health of Connecticut families and to stop the spread of preventable disease,” said Attorney General [William] Tong.”
No court ruled that Connecticut protected health or stopped disease – the US Supreme Court declined to hear a legal challenge to the state’s elimination of a religious exemption. Parents should not need a theological refuge from state administration of pharmaceuticals for which there are insufficient studies, near absolute government and corporate immunity, and no opportunity to factually prove potential harms.
Rising parental vaccine resistance seeded by a lack of government transparency is itself employed by health authorities to extinguish fundamental rights in order to inject yet more healthy children. This is not a vision of liberty and public safety and can be seen more as a compelled faith in pharmaceutical ‘science.’ Thus, it appears government officials and pharmaceutical giants are better immunized against legal liability than America’s children are against unwanted vaccinations.
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