Alaska Dispatch News – by Patrick McGeehan, The New York Times
NEW YORK — New York state’s requirement that children be vaccinated before attending public school does not violate their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said on Wednesday.
In affirming the requirement’s constitutionality, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a previous ruling by a federal judge that students exempted from the requirement for religious reasons can be barred from school when another child has a disease preventable by a vaccine.
The decision was the latest to go against three parents from New York City who say their religious rights were violated when their children were kept out of school as a result of the immunization policies. The parents’ lawyer, Patricia Finn, said her clients planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I think the court will hear it,” Finn said in a phone interview from her office in Piermont. “The issue is very timely, it’s ripe. People are very concerned about vaccines and other drugs being pushed on children.” Finn said the nation’s highest court had not reviewed any “significant case” dealing with mandatory vaccinations in 100 years.
In its decision Wednesday, the appellate panel cited a Supreme Court decision from 1905 that held that compulsory vaccination was within a state’s “police power.”
In this case, the plaintiffs argued that a growing body of scientific evidence showed that vaccines caused more harm than good. Finn went further, saying the court ignored evidence that there was “rampant fraud” in the vaccine program. The appellate panel said that determination should be left to lawmakers.
Under state law, parents claiming religious exemptions do not have to prove that their faith opposes the use of vaccines, but must provide a written explanation of a “genuine and sincere” religious objection. School officials can accept or reject that explanation. While some states let parents claim a philosophical exemption, New York does not.
Two of the families objected to the vaccination requirements on religious grounds, but complained that their children were not allowed to attend school while another child had a disease the vaccines were designed to prevent. The panel said the state had the constitutional right to bar unvaccinated children altogether, so doing so temporarily was “clearly constitutional.”
In a statement, the city’s Law Department said, “We are pleased with this decision, which is in the best interest of the public health and protects city schoolchildren, their families and the broader community in which we all live.”
Finn, who said she was “just a country lawyer fighting Big Pharma,” said she and her clients would continue seeking donations from others opposed to mandatory vaccinations to fund their legal battle. She said they had received contributions of as much as $50,000 from some supporters, but had also resorted to bake sales to raise money.
“We’re not hopeless,” Finn said. “We’re encouraged.”
http://www.adn.com/article/20150108/state-vaccine-requirement-lawful-appeals-court-says
The whole idea of forced vaccinations or any other medical treatment is abhorrent to the rights of a free people to be secure in their persons as well as property. The statist belief that citizens are actually the property of the state must be rejected and resisted with all the vigor possible. The case of the young woman in CT being held against her and her families wishes and forced to take poisonous chemotherapy is no less repugnant than the waterboarding of prisoners in Guantanamo.