Freedom of Religion and Conscience in America

Posted: 10/16/2019 10:17:47 AM | with 4 comments

By Barbara Loe Fisher

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Government health officials and medical trade associations are aggressively lobbying state legislatures for elimination of religious exemptions to vaccination in public health laws in your state. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10} One reason they are doing that is because they know it is unconstitutional to force you to prove you are a member of a church that opposes vaccination in order to exercise freedom of religion in the United States of America. ^{11 12 13}

In this country, our Constitution guarantees we have the freedom to follow our conscience and worship God or hold spiritual beliefs that do - or do not – adhere to the tenets of an organized religion or church.  We also have the freedom to hold no religious or spiritual beliefs. ¹⁴

Freedom of religion is specifically recognized in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution as a natural right protected under U.S. law. ^{15 16} Internationally, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are recognized as human rights. ¹⁷

We are a nation governed by laws. Laws are made by the people we elect to represent us in our state legislatures and in Congress. ¹⁸ The courts interpret and enforce laws. ¹⁹ Judicial decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court, are binding on all state and federal courts.

1905 U.S. Supreme Court Endorses Utilitarianism

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a morally flawed decision in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts ²⁰ based on the since discredited philosophy of utilitarianism, ^{21 22 23} which uses a mathematical equation as a guide to making law and defining ethical behavior. ^{24 25}  In the name of the public health, the Court ruled that the welfare of a minority of people can be sacrificed for the welfare of a greater number of people. ²⁶

That Supreme Court decision, which legalized the use of utilitarianism ^{27 28} as a guide to public health law, declared that state legislatures have the constitutional authority to mandate vaccinations, even if the mandate conflicts with a citizen’s religious beliefs.

U.S. Supreme Court Justifies Forced Sterilization Laws Based on Mandatory Vaccination Laws

In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ^{29 30} used the utilitarian ruling in Jacobson, which condoned forced vaccination, to justify another diabolical judicial ruling, this one allowing state governments to practice eugenics and involuntarily sterilize Americans considered by public health officials to be genetically defective. ^{31 32 33}

Over the past century, the Jacobson vs. Massachusetts decision has been upheld in many state and federal courts, when parents have challenged the constitutionality of state vaccine mandates prohibiting unvaccinated children from receiving a school education. ^{34 35 36 37 38 39}

States Have Constitutional Authority to Choose Not to Mandate Vaccines, Allow Exemptions

Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that state legislatures have the constitutional authority to mandate vaccines, state legislatures also have the constitutional authority to choose not to mandate vaccines and/or to include exemptions for conscientious and religious beliefs. ⁴⁰ So, the kinds of public health laws that are passed in state legislatures ^{41 42} depend upon the values and beliefs of the lawmakers, who voters elect in that state. ^{43 44 45 46 47}

Right now, there are only two laws that require American citizens to risk their lives. The first is a federal law, the military draft, which requires all healthy male adults to risk their lives in a war declared by the government to protect national security. The federal government allows adults conscripted for military service, who object to killing other people for reasons of conscience or religious beliefs, to obtain a conscientious objection exemption and perform alternative civil service. ⁴⁸

The second law is a state law requiring all healthy children to risk their lives in a war on microbes that doctors declared two centuries ago. ^{49 50 51 52 53} However, unlike adults who are not segregated and denied a school education or medical care ⁵⁴ for following their conscience and religious beliefs, parents can be punished for following their conscience and refusing to risk their children’s lives in a perpetual war on microbes that, today, the federal government has expanded from the concept of protecting the public health ⁵⁵ to a more military concept of protecting national “security.” ^{56 57 58 59 60}

Mandatory Vaccination Laws Without Exemptions Violate Human and Civil Rights

Today, parents who follow their conscience and religious beliefs, are being sanctioned by government officials if they oppose vaccination, and so are their children. ^{61 62} State legislatures are passing laws and public health officials are issuing administrative rules that discriminate against children, who lack even one of the dozens of doses of state mandated vaccinations, by segregating them from their peers and denying them a school education.

State governments implementing federal government policy also are taking away the legal right for enlightened and compassionate doctors to give children, who are at high risk for suffering vaccine injury and death, a medical exemption to vaccination; ^{63 64 65} and states are permitting pediatricians to deny medical care to children if their parents refuse one or more federally recommended vaccinations. ^{66 67}

The military draft in times of war and vaccine mandates are two different laws that legally require healthy Americans to risk injury or death: one law temporarily conscripts healthy adults in what the government clearly defines as an emergency military action; and the other law perpetually conscripts healthy children in a mandatory vaccination program that the government does not define as an emergency military action, but is certainly operated like one. ⁶⁸

Unlimited Authority Exercised by Medical Establishment Threatens Human Rights

In the 21^st century, the biggest threat to individual and public health is not measles or pertussis or influenza. The biggest threat to our health is the increasingly unlimited authority that doctors exercise over the human right to autonomy and protection of bodily integrity. ^{69 70 71 72}

Whether they are employed by the uniformed U.S. Pubic Health Service ^{73 74} or are civilian doctors enlisted to implement government policy, it is dangerous to give doctors or anyone else unchecked power to order people to choose between playing vaccine roulette with their lives or their children’s lives or be punished for refusing to obey the order. ⁷⁵

Judeo-Christian Traditions Value Prayer, Affirm Conscience

The medical practice of vaccination is only two centuries old and came thousands of years after the founding of the world’s major organized religions: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Obviously, there is no major religion with a written tenet opposing vaccination.

However, there is a strong Judeo-Christian tradition ⁷⁶ affirming the duty of those who believe in God to follow their conscience. ^{77 78}  If you are a Christian, you can find passages in the Bible, which affirm your beliefs as a Christian to follow your conscience and the guidance given to you by God through prayer. ⁷⁹ Prayer for guidance is central to many Protestant denominations. ^{80 81}

Also, the definition of moral conscience is discussed in detail in the catechism of the Catholic Church, which holds that, “Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescription of the divine law.” ⁸²

In even stronger terms, Catholic canon warns that, “a human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” ⁸³

If you are of Jewish faith, your foundation is the old testament of the Bible and the Torah, ⁸⁴ which emphasize that man is created in the image of God and that each individual human being has worth and a right to equal and loving treatment. Preservation of human life and reliance on God ⁸⁵ is central to the teachings of Judaism.

Get Involved in Law Making Process to Protect Human Rights

Because vaccines can injure and kill and doctors cannot predict who will be harmed, we have the human right and everyone should have the legal right to exercise informed consent, freedom of conscience and religious belief when making a decision about vaccination. ⁸⁶

If you want civil liberties and human rights protected in your state laws, you need to vote in every election and get involved in the lawmaking process. You can start today by making sure your elected representatives know how you feel about vaccine laws that violate your conscience and religious beliefs.

Go to NVIC.org and NVICAdvocacy.org to learn more about vaccination and join with tens of thousands of Americans, who are learning how to become vaccine freedom advocates so they can defend civil liberties and human rights in every state.

Be the one who never has to say that you did not do today what you could have done to change tomorrow.

It’s your health. Your family. Your choice.

Posted: 10/16/2019 10:17:47 AM | with 4 comments

Comments

	Elizabeth Blocker Ebaugh
	I am totally in agreement of our civil right to choose including vaccines. This conversation needs to expand to recognize vaccines are not right for all and the true science, not the Big Pharmo paid for science needs to be disseminated to all.
	10/18/2019 11:45:00 AM
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	Erin
	I have been a nurse for 20 years and I recently applied at a teaching hospital in Boston. They offered me the job and I accepted but when I went in to Occupational Health and declined the flu vaccine the offer was rescinded. Nurses are being fired or not hired because they refuse the flu shot. I’ve worked in several hospitals over the years and many years ago was never forced to get a flu shot. I’m very disappointed and upset at what is happening. We should not be mandated to take a medication or bullied because we don’t. It doesn’t feel right at all. I’m disgusted and very discouraged. My current nurse manager thinks we will be mandated soon and if that happens I could be out of a job.
	10/18/2019 2:18:11 PM
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	Shannon
	Erin, I also am a RN, and at the hospital where I work there are a surprising amount of people who are choosing to not vaccinate. They re allowing us to opt out this year, but I also feel one day you will have to do it or lose your job. In which case I will say BYE BYE!!! Im not going to be poisoned in order to work a job. I'm proud of you Erin for sticking to your guns.
	10/20/2019 1:21:01 PM
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	vinita goel
	Removing religious exemption and making mandatory vaccination goes against citizens civil rights.
	1/3/2020 12:05:17 PM
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