High Court Won’t Hear Challenge to N.Y. School Vaccine Rules

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to New York state’s requirement that all children be vaccinated before they can attend school, upholding an appeals court ruling that said the policy does not violate students’ constitutional right of religious freedom.

The appeals court had also upheld a federal judge’s ruling that students exempted from the immunization policy for religious reasons could still be barred from school during an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease.

In the New York case, two students who were not vaccinated on religious grounds were temporarily barred from going to their school after a fellow student was diagnosed with chicken pox.

The family of the third student challenged the statute after a judge denied her mother’s request for a vaccine exemption, finding that the mother’s concerns were primarily health-related and not based in religion.

This article appeared in print on page 32 of the October 8th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.