Page 44 - Spring2020

How Impersonal Vaccine

Laws Play Out in Real Life:

New York’s Repeal

of the Religious Exemption

By Joyce Campbell

s a chapter leader for the Weston A. Price

Foundation in central New York State, I field a
Alot of phone calls. Most of them fall into one of

three categories: “Where can I find raw milk?”; “Where
can I buy Wise Traditions foods?”; and “Do you have

a group that meets?” But one phone call in late August
2019 was different, and my first reaction was a slight

sinking sensation. When a Mennonite-inflected voice
asked, “What can we do to protect our school children

from the new vaccination law?”, I didn’t have a ready-

made answer.
I was well aware of the egregious new law, which ended the vaccine
religious exemption for children in all public, private and parochial schools
at all levels—from day care through secondary school. The law required
all New York school children not already vaccinated to begin receiving
all required vaccinations by the beginning of the 2019 school year and
to complete them by the end of the school year. Medical exemptions,
1
while still legal, were already notoriously difficult to obtain even before
the law’s passage.

44 Wise Traditions SPRING 2020