Second, even before 1990, laws addressing children’s welfare did not require a religious exemption, and not vaccinating a child puts the child at risk. The state does not have to exempt you from paying taxes if you have religious objections to taxation, it does not have to allow you to smoke peyote in a religious ceremony, and similarly, it does not have to exempt you from vaccine requirements even if your reasons for opposing them are religious. First, since 1990, the Supreme Court has ruled that generally applicable, neutral on their face laws do not have to exempt people with religious objections. To date, no court, state or federal, has ruled that a state has to provide a religious exemption. While the Supreme Court has not spoken directly on the topic for decades, many other courts in the United States have examined whether a religious exemption from school immunization mandates is required. Why doesn’t United States law require a religious exemption? But, when states do adopt a religious exemption, the law makes it very hard to limit it to people whose reasons to oppose vaccines are actually religious. The law in the United States does not require states to provide religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, but states can choose to do so, and most do. This essay explores how the law handles religious-based objections to vaccines mandates in the United States. While most major religions do not oppose vaccines, there have always been small groups and individuals who had sincere objections to vaccines. Freedom of religion is one of the values on which several colonies – later states – were founded, and is embedded in the First Amendment in our constitution.
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