US Supreme Court rejects mother’s religious exemption appeal over child’s vaccines

The US Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from a Catholic mother who wanted her five-year-old son exempted from New York’s school vaccination requirements on religious grounds.

The woman, who was not identified, said the requirements violated her religious freedom. She asked the court to let her son attend school without moving to Florida, where vaccination rules are less strict, while her legal challenge proceeded. Lower courts had already found it unlikely that she would obtain a religious exemption and refused to allow the child to enroll in a public school in Eastchester.

The mother argued that if New York allows medical exemptions, it must also allow religious exemptions. State authorities urged the Supreme Court to reject the request, saying the two types of exemptions are not comparable.

The child has received some vaccines, but New York requires additional doses against polio, chickenpox and other diseases. His mother objected to the doses because they inject “biological material derived from unclean sources directly into the bloodstream.”

New York allowed religious exemptions for children in the public school system for decades. Authorities ended the practice in 2019, after New York City experienced its largest measles outbreak in three decades. The court’s brief order said Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have approved the mother’s request.

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Biological material derived from unclean sources directly into the bloodstream.