Anna Hicks prepares a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine at the Andrews County Health Department in Andrews, Texas, on April 8.Annie Rice/The Associated Press
In 2015, after a large measles outbreak which began at Disneyland, the State of California revoked a law that allowed parents to refuse vaccination for their children based on religious or philosophical reasons.
In 2019, after a large measles outbreak in New York, centred principally in Orthodox Jewish communities, the state axed its vaccine exemption.
In response to high-profile outbreaks of a vaccine-preventable illness (both of which spread into Canada), California and New York flipped from being states with lax vaccination standards, to having strict requirements. They also undertook determined efforts to win over the vaccine-hesitant. They put children’s health first, despite the political blowback.
So, what is Ontario waiting for?
The province is in the midst of its largest measles outbreak in almost three decades, one that has its origins in the Mennonite community.
There have been 925 reported cases since October, including 109 cases last week alone; 69 people have been hospitalized, including four who had to be treated in intensive care.
Yet, the province has done next to nothing in response.
In fact, Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, has defended the province’s religious and philosophical exemption.
“We have to respect their opinion and have to work with the community to ensure that they’re aware of the benefits of the vaccine,” he said.
Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act, all children in Ontario must be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, meningococcal disease, whooping cough, mumps and rubella, as well as chicken pox for children born in or after 2010. (New Brunswick has a similar law, while Manitoba makes measles vaccination mandatory. Vaccines are not mandatory in other provinces or territories.)
But, with a little paperwork, anyone can opt out.
The exemption is ridiculous, and we most certainly do not need to “respect the opinion” of anyone invoking it.
Refusing vaccination is not a tenet of any major religion. Some make vague claims that vaccination interrupts the divine plan for someone’s life, and not wanting to interfere with God’s will, but those are personal beliefs, not doctrine. For the most part, people are invoking religious beliefs to try and give more legal credence to their secular concerns.
Respecting religious freedom is important, but it has to be balanced against other rights.
Freedom of religion was never meant to exempt people from societal obligations, like protecting the health and well-being of children.
The U.S. Supreme Court stated the case clearly against religious exemptions in a ruling way back in 1878: “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
That’s the key point in this debate: The state cannot tell you what to think, but it can tell you what to do. Especially when it’s for the greater good.
Much of the pushback toward vaccines in religious communities is in response to COVID-19 mitigation measures. Many religious groups did not take kindly to churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras and other places of worship being closed.
Fair enough. But anger over past government policies doesn’t justify not vaccinating children, or ignoring any other laws for that matter.
There are bona fide reasons for refusing vaccination, such as medical concerns. Some people have severe allergies to some vaccine components, and some people with severe immune deficiencies can be at risk from vaccination. But these are very rare cases.
What, pray tell, is a “philosophical” objection to vaccination?
The most common one is people claiming they have “parental rights” to decide what is best for their children.
True but, again, personal beliefs do not supersede the public good, or other laws.
We don’t allow parents to beat their children, even if they think corporal punishment is their right. We don’t allow child marriage. And we cannot allow those with anti-science beliefs to harm others.
In a civilized society, we have obligations to each other, including protecting the frail.
An unvaccinated child puts other children unnecessarily at risk, especially in a communal setting like a school. That’s why vaccination needs to be mandatory in a school setting, and in other group settings like sports and the arts.
The first and only job of public health is to, well, protect the public’s health.
Advocating for the scrapping of religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccination is part of that role; mollifying the selfish and self-righteous is not.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article included an incomplete list of vaccinations required under Ontario's Immunization of School Pupils Act. This version has been updated to include meningococcal disease and whooping cough, as well as chicken pox for children born in or after 2010.