TRI In The News

Vaccination Law Challenged on Religious Grounds

4/27/2011

TRI IN THE NEWS: VACCINATION LAW CHALLENGED ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS

From OneNewsNow
Original article available here.

A West Virginia mother has turned to the courts so that her child can be exempted from mandatory vaccinations for religious reasons.

Jennifer Workman has declined to permit her six-year-old daughter to take vaccinations that are required for her to attend public school in Mingo County, as she claims they are to blame for an older child's mental disorder.

"She filed a lawsuit saying her First Amendment right to free exercise of religion requires that she be exempted from anything that she feels violates her sincerely held religious beliefs," explains John Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute. "In this case, she feels that she owes honor to God in protecting her children from harm and illness."

Workman lost her case in lower courts, so the Institute is handling her lawsuit in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"There are very few cases like this one," Whitehead notes. "This is an age when many parents are concerned that mandatory vaccines and various vaccines may cause autism and a number of other diseases in children, so it's a very, very important case" that may need to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

While exemptions are accepted for children whose doctors certify there is sufficient reason, West Virginia law does not provide exemptions for religious or philosophical differences.