During the 2018-19 school year, New York saw a significant spike in measles cases, the largest outbreak in decades with the virus spreading among hundreds of school-age children who hadn’t been vaccinated. The state’s government resorted to some extreme measures to deal with the outbreak, including a new law that eliminated any exemptions from vaccinations on religious grounds.
Prior to that law, records show that the state had allowed more than 26,000 students to attend school without being vaccinated due to a religious exemption during the 2017-18 school year, WABC reported.
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Under the new law, parents had until 14 days after the start of the new school year to prove that their kids had started the immunization process.
Kids who failed to meet that deadline wouldn’t be allowed to come to class anymore. That deadline has now passed, and the parents of the kids who aren’t allowed in their school halls anymore are livid .
Anti-vaxx parents have been expressing their anger on social media, with many posting memes and messages that liken their plight to segregation.
“I have been losing a lot of sleep, anxiety, my blood pressure is going up,” Cathy Orofino, whose children previously had a religious exemption, told WABC. “It’s repealing people’s freedom of choice, freedom of medical choice, and I just don’t see how that’s possible in America,” she said, adding that she believes her kids have a “God-given” immune system that “should not be interfered with by man or toxic chemicals.”
Many of the parents who have spoken out against the law have chosen to homeschool their children rather than have them vaccinated so they can go back to class.
The only other option — apart from actually vaccinating their kids — would be to seek out a medical exemption, which would have to be certified by a licensed New York physician, stating “that such immunization may be detrimental to a child’s health.”
For the New York government, the risks of another serious outbreak outweigh the concerns of anti-vaxx parents.
“I understand freedom of religion. We all do. We respect it. I’ve heard the anti-vaxxers’ theory, but I believe both are overwhelmed by the public health risk,” Governor Cuomo said when he signed the new law on June 13.
The NY Supreme Court upheld a challenge to the law in August, ruling that “Protecting public health … is unquestionably a compelling state interest.”
It’s unknown at present how many kids will be home schooled and how many will be returning to class after their vaccinations are caught up.
But the rhetoric around the issue is heated, with no end in sight, as many passionate parents stick with their beliefs and refuse to comply with the law, and the right to an education butts heads with the right to not be infected.
h/t: BuzzFeed News , WABC
