Stop Massachusetts Legislation That Eliminates Vaccine Exemptions and Expands State Control!

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Massachusetts lawmakers are advancing multiple bills that would eliminate longstanding vaccine exemptions, expand government control over medical decisions, and undermine parental authority.

H.2554 and S.1557 would eliminate religious exemptions for vaccines required for school attendance by removing the existing exemption language from state law and replacing it with new provisions. These bills also require the Department to annually report vaccination and exemption data.

S.2623also eliminates religious exemptions and goes significantly further by creating a centralized system under the Department of Public Health to control exemption processes, expand data tracking, identify under-vaccinated communities, and increase the state’s authority to exclude children and override parental decision-making.

Together, these bills represent a major shift away from informed consent and toward centralized, state-directed medical policy.

Under these proposals, families could face new barriers to education, increased surveillance of personal medical decisions and the erosion of both religious liberty and parental rights.

The bills are actively moving through the legislative process.

Please act NOW.

TAKE ACTION

Contact your Massachusetts State Representative and Senator and urge them to: OPPOSE

H.2554, S.1557 and S.2623.

Find your legislators here:
 https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator

SAMPLE SCRIPT

“Hello, my name is ___ and I’m a constituent. I’m calling to urge you to OPPOSE H.2554, S.1557, and S.2623.

These bills eliminate religious exemptions, restrict medical exemptions, and place excessive control over medical decisions in the hands of the state.

Families should have the right to make individualized medical decisions based on their child’s health, medical history and deeply held beliefs.

These proposals undermine informed consent and could deny children access to education based on medical choices.

Please vote NO on these bills.

Thank you.”

TALKING POINTS

1. Share why this is personal to you, whether it is because you have a religious belief that conflicts with vaccination, support religious freedom generally, or whatever your reasons are.

2. The Massachusetts child vaccination rate is currently 96.1% for the 7 vaccines surveyed by the CDC.  The existing religious exemptions are not a problem and should be left intact. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6640a3.htm

3. The claimed justification – that unvaccinated individuals pose a health risk to others – is unsupported in the medical literature.  In fact, vaccinated individuals can pose a greater risk to public health due to a process known as shedding.  Scientific evidence demonstrates that individuals vaccinated with live virus vaccines such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles, and influenza can shed the virus for many weeks or months afterward and infect the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. https://www.westonaprice.org/studies-show-that-vaccinated-individuals-spread-disease/ 

4. Vaccines are medical procedures that carry risk of serious injury.  The U.S. Supreme Court recognizes vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe” and to cause injury and death in some recipients.  The U.S. Government has paid out approximately $5.2 billion to the victims of vaccine injury.  Hundreds of thousands have reported an adverse reaction to vaccination to VAERS. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/

5. Families have long relied on religious exemptions to make healthcare decisions aligned with their beliefs. Removing this protection forces families to choose between their convictions and their child’s education.

6. These bills shift authority away from treating physicians and toward the Department of Public Health, limiting doctors’ ability to exercise clinical judgment based on individual patient needs.

7. Expanding data collection and reporting can lead to identification, stigma, and pressure directed at families who exercise lawful exemptions.

8. Requiring state-approved forms, limiting qualifying conditions, and imposing expiration timelines make exemptions difficult to obtain—pressuring families toward compliance.

MORE INFORMATION

H.2554 https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H2554/Cosponsor

A.1557 https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/S1557

S.2623 https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/S2623

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