Court rejects religious objection to COVID shot for boy
Vaccinations against COVID-19 are recommended, but not required, for schoolchildren in California. When a judge orders vaccination for a youngster living in a group home, however, a state appeals court says the youth must comply despite a parent’s religious objection.
In its decision Monday, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles quoted a 1944 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the limits of religious exemptions from secular laws: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease.”
The child, identified as Matthew M., had been placed with his mother in 2020 because of abuse by his father. In 2021, when he was experiencing mental health problems, his mother relinquished custody and he was placed in a group home by county child-welfare officials, the court said.
California, like all other states, requires schoolchildren to be vaccinated against contagious diseases such as measles, mumps and polio, and is one of only six states that do not allow religious exemptions to those mandates.
But while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended COVID vaccinations for children, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have both dropped proposals to require the vaccines for public school students in California.
The vaccines can still be mandated in other settings, such as private schools and group homes, and in this case, a Juvenile Court commissioner ordered vaccination for Matthew M. in 2021 when he turned 12. That was then the minimum age for COVID vaccines approved by the CDC, which has since approved the shots for children as young as 6 months. The commissioner, Nichelle Blackwell, said the youth was vulnerable and would be close to many other children at school and the group home.
The mother, Christina P., told the court that both she and Matthew were born-again Christians and that she objected to any “mechanism for altering my God-given body.” She noted that the vaccines sometimes had side effects and also claimed, inaccurately, that the medications had been manufactured from aborted fetal tissues, the court said.
A lawyer for Matthew M. told Blackwell the child was willing to let the commissioner make the decision, and she ruled in March 2022 that vaccination was in Matthew’s best interest. He still has not been vaccinated during the mother’s appeal and tested positive for the coronavirus in December, the court said.
When a child is declared a dependent of juvenile court, the court is authorized by state law to make “any and all reasonable orders for the care, supervision, custody, conduct, maintenance and support of the child, including medical treatment,” Presiding Justice Dennis Perluss said in Monday’s 3-0 ruling upholding Blackwell’s decision.
“However legitimate Christina’s concerns may have been about long-term side effects of the vaccine, it was for the Juvenile Court to weigh the benefits of vaccinating Matthew — for himself and for those he would interact with — and the possible risks,” Perluss wrote.
Christina P. could ask the state Supreme Court to review the ruling. Her lawyer, John McCurley, said he would probably ask the court to reject the appellate panel’s decision on religious objections as a precedent for future cases.