CT families seek to block school vaccine mandate enforcement

Two Connecticut families have asked a judge to suspend the repeal of the religious exemption for vaccinations so their children can start school in the fall as their lawsuit against Gov. Ned Lamont and other state officials moves forward.

Keira Spillane, of Orange, and Anna Kehle, of Greenwich, have children who will enter kindergarten this fall and older children who are already attending elementary school, according to the lawsuit filed in April. The older children were grandfathered into the vaccine religious exemption when a law repealing the exemption was passed in 2021, the lawsuit said.

But the younger children were not grandfathered in and must get vaccinated to start school, court documents said. As a result of the removal of the religious exemption, the younger children “will not be able to attend public or private school as of September 2022” unless their families alter their religious beliefs, the lawsuit said.

The families contend that many childhood vaccines are developed through the use of aborted fetuses, which is against their religious beliefs, the lawsuit said.

Both women are suing Lamont, state Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani, state Department of Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker, the Orange school board and the Whitby School, a private school in Greenwich, on the grounds that the repeal of the exemption violates the state’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, according to their attorney Lindy Urso.

Urso filed an injunction Monday, asking a judge to suspend the law that repealed the religious exemption until the lawsuit is finished. If the injunction is granted, it would not only allow his clients’ children to attend school in the fall, but would apply to other children throughout the state who are not vaccinated due to religious beliefs and who were not grandfathered in the exemption in 2021.

In order for a judge to rule on the injunction, attorneys with the Office of Attorney General William Tong would have to file their stance on suspending the repeal and a hearing would need to be held, Urso said.

“We are hoping to have a decision before school starts,” Urso said.

Tong said in a statement issued Thursday that the state will continue to fight the lawsuit to protect children.

“We don’t need a New York lawyer coming into Connecticut to tell us what to do and to challenge our public health laws,” Tong said. “But sadly, I am not surprised. Make no mistake — if successful, this lawsuit will make people, including our kids, less safe and vulnerable to entirely preventable diseases. That is why we will vigorously defend the legislature’s actions designed to protect public health.”

A similar lawsuit filed in federal court challenging the repeal of the religious exemption was dismissed by a judge in January. The plaintiffs in that case, a nonprofit called “We the People Inc.” and three parents, have appealed the decision. That case is pending, court records show.

Connecticut’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires the “highest level of judicial scrutiny for laws which burden religious liberty,” according to New York attorney Kevin Barry, who is informally working on the case with Urso.

The issue of mandatory vaccinations for school children has been hotly debated in Connecticut at least since 2020 when the legislature proposed a bill repealing the religious exemption. That legislative session was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic so very few bills moved forward.

Legislators tried again 2021 and were successful along party lines in repealing the religious exemption, which drew wide protests at the state Capitol and hundreds of residents speaking out against the move during a public hearing.

An April 2021 report issued to the Public Health Committee indicated state medical and education associations were concerned that immunization rates had fallen below 95 percent in 130 schools in part due to the religious exemption.

“Having a student body with immunization rates that fall below the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) federal guideline of 95 percent is alarming and dangerous to those individuals who are prohibited from receiving the vaccine based on their medical frailty,” the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education was quoted in the report.

The state granted religious exemptions for 2.5 percent of kindergartners and 1.2 percent of new seventh-grade students in the 2018-19 school year, according to Dr. Benjamin Cherry, health and public policy co-chair of the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Physicians. The percentages are a “six-fold increase in students claiming religious exemptions since 2003,” Cherry said in the report. “Over the same time frame, by contrast, medical exemptions remained at 0.02 percent.”

Urso contends that the state opted to repeal the religious exemptions, rather than address the schools that had lagging vaccination rates.

“We don’t believe there is a compelling need to remove the exemption and this measure was also not the least restrictive means to achieve their goal,” Urso said Thursday. “This was the most severe thing they could have done.”

The lawsuit claims that mandating parents to immunize their children is “an unreasonable and permanent interference with the plaintiff ’s religious practice “because the inoculation can not be undone and permanently alters the immune system.”

Urso has also filed paperwork asking for permission for New York attorney James Mermigis to work with him on the lawsuit. Like Barry, Mermigis has experience in dealing with vaccine religious exemption cases, Urso said.

The goal of the lawsuit is to get a judge to strike down the law that prohibits the religious exemption, which has been in effect since 1959, Urso said.

“We’re hoping to get a repeal of the whole thing,” Urso said.