A group of parents and a nonprofit organization called “Education 4 All" just filed a suit to overturn a new state law that prohibits children whose parents opted out of vaccinations for "personal reasons" from enrolling in public schools and child care facilities.
Last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown, spurred on by public support, signed Senate Bill 277 into law. Previous law stated that although children needed to be fully immunized before being enrolled in school or child care centers, parents could request for their child to be exempt from the requirement if vaccinations went against their personal beliefs. But under the new law, children who are not vaccinated must be homeschooled and cannot be enrolled in places such as public schools and daycare centers until their shots are up to date.
Exemptions are still allowed for children who have serious health concerns that could be affected by vaccination.
The bill came soon after the measles outbreak which was linked to Disneyland earlier in 2015, during which more than 150 people were infected. The outbreak led to concerns about unvaccinated children spreading deadly diseases that could in some cases result in death.
“Parents do not need to worry, do not want to worry, about taking their children to the school or to stores, to theme parks,” said state Sen. Richard Pan (D), who authored the bill. “The courts have been very clear that you don’t have a right to spread a communicable disease.”
Opponents of the bill said they would challenge the measure as soon as possible.
“We need to wait until someone actually gets thrown out of school until we can challenge it,” said Christina Hildebrand, a founder of the group called A Voice For Choice.
Anti-vaccine families wasted no time in taking action to defend their right to make choices on how to raise their own children, saying that Senate Bill 277 violates their children’s right to an education as guaranteed under California’s constitution, and have asked for the mandates to be suspended while the law is contested.
The suit claims that the law “infringes on the Plaintiffs’ and their children’s fundamental rights, including parental rights, right to bodily integrity, right to informed consent and to refuse medical intervention, right to privacy, and/ or right to free exercise of religion, by requiring Plaintiffs to choose between those rights and the right to education.”
Last year, supporters of the legislators said that they were confident that the law could withstand all legal challenges.