By Stephen Smoot
“I am calling on the State Superintendent of Schools and the county boards of education to work with the Bureau of Public Health to ensure that religious rights of students are protected.” West Virginia Patrick Morrisey issued this statement last May as he released Executive Order 7-25.
The main purpose of executive orders lies in the Chief Executive, in this case the Governor, providing interpretive guidance on how to respect and enforce acts passed by the Legislative branch of government.
Morrisey’s order’s core comes in the clause that reads “the Legislature directed the Equal Protection for Religion Act (ERPA) to apply ‘(n)otwithstanding any other provision of law.’”
State code, from that phrase, goes on to add that “no state action may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion unless applying the burden to that person’s exercise of religion in a particular situation is essential to further a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest.”
Among other clauses, the Act also states that the State government may not “treat religious conduct more restrictively than any conduct of reasonably comparable risk.”
That said, the West Virginia State Legislature declined to pass an act that would specifically recognize parental or guardian rights in regard to vaccinations. This served as one of the core arguments from the West Virginia Board of Education which, as it stated in a June release,
“directed the State Superintendent of Schools to notify all school districts to follow the law that has been in effect since 1937.”
It went on to explain that it was “taking the important steps of protecting the school community from the real risk of exposure to litigation that could result from not following vaccination laws.”
On August 21, the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights addressed a “Dear Colleagues” communication to “West Virginia Health Departments Participating in the Vaccines for Children Program.” It read that “OCR enforces 26 conscience statutes applicable to various funding streams as well as 21 religious non-discrimination provisions in other federal statutes and regulations, which include a number of grant and block grant programs.”
That same letter indicated that those participating in the vaccination program “must comply with applicable State law.” It cited the same State act as Morrisey, combined with the Governor’s executive order and warned “West Virginia is obligated to ensure that its VCP (program name) providers comply with applicable state laws like ERPA.”
A release from the WVBE noted that “the letter is not directed at WVBE or West Virginia school districts and has no impact.” Later, the release shared that the WVBE would “stay the course.”
The debate thus far has centered on questions of the Governor’s authority or predicted outcomes of the exemption, but not so much about the reasons provided by faiths affected by the question.
Different faiths may raise questions about, or even ban, vaccines among their faithful. Delegate Kathie Hess Crouse (R- Putnam) has worked to promote religious exemptions for vaccines in the State Legislature. She has taken the position that “West Virginia families should never be forced to choose between their faith and their children’s education.”
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI approved guidance from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith called “Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions.” The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, using various names, dates back to the 16 th Century and has the historical duty of preventing the Church and the faithful from falling into error.
This communication touched on the use of human fetal cells in scientific inquiry and products. It reads that “danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin (from aborted children), while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that the health care system make other types of vaccines available.”
That said, use of these vaccines with their contents compromised, at least in the eyes of devout Roman Catholics and other Christians, “gives rise to various ethical problems with regard to cooperation in evil and with regard to scandal.”
Many in the Jewish faith seek guidance from the Talmud in cases of integrating faith into daily life. The Talmud formed over the centuries as rabbis worked out matters of how to implement the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Code to live according to the will of the Lord. It has authority in matters of faith not unlike secular case law or common law in the United States and Great Britain.
Though the Talmud emerged before the science of medical vaccinations, many faithful Jewish use it metaphorically to guide their actions according to their beliefs. Just as in case and common law, modern situations can arise that have similar conditions to past issues.
Some elements of the Talmud could form a case against vaccinations in specific cases. The Bava Kamma 91b includes statements that make it plain that a person cannot injure him or herself, neven though it also argues that one who does “is nevertheless exempt from any sort of penalty.”
The question, however, lies in whether the vaccine or vaccine refusal is more likely to create the injury.
One of the most significant religious objections to vaccinations come from the makeup of gelatin used to create the vaccines. Both Jewish and Muslims see pork as unclean and many Muslims even see contact with pork as a barrier to entering their version of Paradise. Many of the common mandated vaccines use gelatin derived from boiling down pork.
One Talmudic authority stated that “one may derive benefit from a prohibited item in time of danger” whereas others urged the opposite. Pesachim 25b from the Talmud contains interpretations from different rabbis, some of which would seem to support the idea “of deriving benefit from such a prohibited item at a time of danger, however who says that one is permitted to do so when it is not a time of danger.”
The same passage shared a discussion concerning a situation of a person forced to be “deriving benefit from a prohibited item that comes to a person against his will,” such as a vaccine that contains unclean materials like pork, one authority stated that “deriving benefit in this manner is permitted” while another stated “it is prohibited.”
A paper found in the National Library of Medicine called “Vaccine hesitancy within the Muslim community et. al” It stated that “Indonesian Islamic clerics declared measles and rubella vaccine
forbidden (Haram) under sharia because pig components were used to manufacture it.” That said, the Fatwa Committee of Perils in Malaysia issued their own guidance, saying “parents have the duty to protect their children from any form of harm. To date, vaccination of children has been nproven to be the most effective way to protect children from various diseases.”
It may be tempting, but very wrong to assume that worshippers in these traditions follow the same guidelines and have the same beliefs on these or other subjects. Those in any faith will adhere more or less to tradition and traditional viewpoints within the same religion.
Additionally, acknowledging that most Muslims seek personal guidance in the tenets of their nfaith from their own religious authorities does not mean that those tenets found in Sharia Law should be reproduced in any legal sense in the United States or be used to excuse violations of nfederal, state, or local law.
Though each religion has different authorities saying different things at different times, the ndevout individual has not just the option, but the duty to choose the path he or she sees as most godly within those sets of guidance Crouse criticized the WVBE, stating that “the State Board of Education has chosen to disregard the Governor’s directive, undermining both executive authority and the rights of parents and nstudents.” She added that “this refusal to acknowledge religious freedom is deeply troubling and nsets a dangerous precedent.”
She added “I am committed to protecting parental rights, preserving religious liberty, and ensuring that state agencies are held accountable to both the law and the people they serve.”
(Talmudic references were first drawn from searches using artificial intelligence, then researched from legitimate sites focusing on that subject.)
