The Supreme Court Just Gave Anti-Vax Parents an Alarming Win

"The Supreme Court handed religious anti-vaxers a significant victory on Monday, setting aside a lower court decision that upheld New York's school vaccine mandate despite its lack of a religious exemption. In a brief, cryptic order, the justices told the lower court to reconsider the case in light of their 6-3 ruling last term in Mahmoud v. Taylor. That decision expanded parents' ability to demand an exemption from any school policy that "substantially interferes with the religious development of their children.""

"Monday's case, Miller v. McDonald, challenges New York's decision to abolish the religious exemption to its school vaccine mandate in 2019. In the years prior, the number of parents claiming these exemptions for their children rose astronomically, and the plummeting immunization rate spurred the state's worst measles epidemic in a quarter-century. The outbreak, predictably, was especially bad in private and parochial schools with high numbers of unvaccinated students."

The Supreme Court ordered reconsideration of a lower court decision that upheld New York's elimination of religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates, citing last term's Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling. Mahmoud expanded parents' ability to obtain exemptions when a school policy substantially interferes with a child's religious development. Applying Mahmoud to immunization could create a First Amendment right for parents to send unvaccinated children to school. New York removed religious exemptions after a dramatic rise in exemption claims and a severe measles outbreak concentrated in private and parochial schools. Amish schools refused to comply with the mandate and faced fines, prompting a constitutional challenge alleging free exercise violations.

Read at Slate Magazine