A panel on the federal appeals court that covers West Virginia held that the state’s mandatory school vaccination law “is a legitimate exercise of the state’s power to protect the health and wellbeing of school children.”
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the state’s interest in preventing disease outweighs individual religious objections in the context of public education.
“Rights, as important as they are, do not swing free and clear of the larger social compact. We live in a society that accords its citizens enormous benefits. In return, states can, in a measured way, require certain exactions and accommodations to the broader social interest,” wrote the majority on the appeals panel.
Similar issues have been considered over the past year in West Virginia’s state-level circuit courts, but this is not the same case.
Instead, it was a federal court issue with themes that overlap the state case. Many of the same attorneys are involved in both the state and federal cases.
“The fact that the executive branch of the federal government may be evincing skepticism to vaccinations does not require the enlistment of the judicial branch in an assault upon state vaccination requirements,” the federal appeals judges wrote in the majority opinion.
“It is possible we take the benefits of vaccination so much for granted that we regard too casually the opening of a second front. States remain free to recognize the weighty medical evidence supporting the value of vaccinations in safeguarding public health.”
West Virginia requires children attending schools in the state to be vaccinated against infectious diseases including chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough.
West Virginia’s law, unlike most states, does not grant exemptions to children whose sincerely held religious beliefs prevent them from getting vaccinated. State law does allow for medical exemptions.
The federal court case focused on a conflict between West Virginia’s mandatory school vaccination law and the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment rights of parents seeking a religious exemption for their child.
The majority appeals court opinion reversed a preliminary injunction by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, concluding that the state’s requirement is a neutral and generally applicable law to protect public health.
The appeals judges who reviewed the case were J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee who wrote the opinion; Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee who joined in the majority opinion; and Paul Niemeyer, a George H.W. Bush appointee who dissented.
The plaintiffs in the case were Anthony and Krystle Perry who wanted a religious exemption from West Virginia’s compulsory vaccination law on behalf of their daughter.
Their daughter, known in the case as K.P., was removed from the Upshur County Virtual School, a public online education program, after being enrolled for 16 months. The removal occurred because K.P. was not fully vaccinated.
Religious exemptions are not available under state law, but the Perrys contended such exemptions are required by the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Tom Kleeh had earlier determined that the Perrys were likely to succeed on the merits of their free exercise claim and granted them a preliminary injunction.
The majority on the appeals court concluded that the state’s rules to protect school children is a fundamental practice that outweighs the parents’ request for a religious exemption.
“West Virginia has a legitimate — indeed, compelling — interest in reducing the spread and severity of infectious diseases,” Wilkinson wrote in the majority opinion.
He elaborated: “The diseases covered by the law are serious and can lead to debilitating, life-threatening complications,” and then the appeals judge listed the risks.
diphtheria (myocarditis, kidney failure, nerve damage, death);
polio (permanent paralysis, meningitis, death);
measles (pneumonia, respiratory tract damage, brain swelling, death);mumps (brain swelling, meningitis, death);
rubella (hemorrhagic issues, brain swelling, birth defects, death);
whooping cough (pneumonia, brain swelling, seizures, death);
tetanus (spasms, nerve dysfunction, death);
chickenpox (bacterial infections, brain swelling, lung inflammation, death);
and hepatitis B (cirrhosis, liver cancer, death).
“For these reasons,” Wilkinson wrote for the majority, “a state’s interest in vaccinating its citizens and protecting its school children has long been recognized as of the utmost importance. This is not just some ho-hum, every day ‘compelling interest.'”