Religious grounds rejected
No exemption on measles, court says
Parents who wished to opt out of vaccinating their children for measles under a former exemption on religious grounds lost their appeal Thursday at the state’s second-highest court.
Appellate justices in Albany unanimously upheld the state’s 2019 elimination of the exemption and a lower ruling by acting Supreme Court Justice Denise Hartman, which was rendered just months before the COVID -19 pandemic exploded in New York.
“Under the well-settled case law and the facts presented here, the repeal easily survives rational basis review,” Appellate Justice Stanley Pritzker said in authoring the ruling by the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department.
“Most parents, no doubt, are well aware of the speed with which a virus can sweep through a classroom,” Pritzker said in a ruling supported by Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry and Justices Michael Lynch, Sharon Aarons and Molly Reynolds Fitzgerald.
The state’s public health law requires children between the ages of two months to 18 years old to be immunized for certain diseases, including meaheld
sles. It previously contained two exceptions: one for medical reasons, the other for religious grounds. In June 2019 — following a measles outbreak in 2018 which impacted concentrated areas of people in Brooklyn and Rockland County — Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law to repeal the religious exemption.
The legal battle ensued. Fifty-five families in New York sued the state, alleging that the repeal was unconstitutional and motivated by active hostility to religion. The parents had argued that the state Legislature failed to act in the height of he outbreak, that no public hearings were
and that the animosity toward religion was reflected in comments by lawmakers, one of whom allegedly called the parents “anti-vaxxers.”
The parents said it also was “suspiciously underinclusive” that exemptions were still allowed for students with medical exemptions, students over 18 and adults employed by schools, but not for religious purposes.
On Thursday, the Third Department upheld Hartman’s decision, rejecting the arguments by the parents’ Goshen-based attorney, Michael H. Sussman. Pritzker said the exemption for children for medical reasons was clearly
distinct.
“There are many arguments to be made as to how children formerly subjected to the religious exemption may also be detrimentally impacted, however, documented concerns as to the physical well-being of children with medical exemptions is a sufficient basis upon which to distinguish the two groups,” Pritzker said. “Indeed, it would be irrational to sacrifice the physical health of some children in the pursuit of protecting public health.”
The judge said the Legislature was permitted to exercise broad discretion required for the protection of public health.