(The Lion) — U.S. courts dealt blows to religious freedom and parental rights this month in two cases involving schools and vaccines.
A federal court upheld New York’s denial of religious exemptions to its vaccine requirements and the Maine Supreme Court ruled that medical personnel who vaccinated a 5-year-old against her parents’ wishes were protected by the federal PREP act.
Three Amish schools in New York sued after being fined for not complying with the state’s vaccine mandate for children to attend school. The Empire State did away with its religious exemption in 2019, one of four states nationwide not to allow an exemption based on sincerely-held religious beliefs. Massachusetts is considering a law to become the fifth.
Attorneys general for 20 states, including Kansas and Missouri, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs, stating that nothing in the experience of those states, “or New York itself for sixty years, suggests that a State must violate fundamental religious freedoms in order to protect its citizens.”
But the court found otherwise, deciding in Miller v. McDonald that New York hadn’t violated the constitutional right to religious freedom and expression.
The schools and families involved have faced daily fines now totaling $118,000, CatholicVote reported.
The law applies to both public and private schools and offers an exemption for medical reasons only.
It was not immediately clear if the plaintiffs will appeal.
In Maine, the state’s highest court dismissed a lawsuit against a medical office that operated a school clinic during COVID-19.
The parents, Jeremiah Hogan and Siara Jean Harrington, say their 5-year-old daughter was vaccinated without their consent, so they sued Lincoln Medical Partners.
At issue is the interpretation of the PREP Act, a federal law granting medical providers immunity under emergency conditions. The act, which was passed in 2005, contains an exception for “willful misconduct,” but the court found the parents’ case didn’t allege this so it dismissed the case, Slay News reported.
The parents argued the federal act doesn’t supersede basic parental rights, but, similar to the New York case, the court found that public health considerations trumped these concerns.
The Maine case mirrors an effort by two Vermont parents to get justice after the local elementary school vaccinated their 6-year-old son despite the father specifically telling the school not to.
Dario and Shujen Politella asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case late last year. The court, which hears only about 2% of the cases that are submitted, typically wraps up oral arguments in April.
