Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz has re-introduced his bill to repeal the religious exemption from vaccine mandates to attend school. Assembly Bill A2371 is nothing more than a vehicle to discriminate against religious minorities whose beliefs Dinowitz does not share, and does nothing to improve public health.
Vaccination for many people is a violation of their religious beliefs, a fact that New York law has recognized and respected since vaccines were made mandatory to attend school. It is common among Mennonites and Amish not to vaccinate. Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists believe that vaccination should be the choice of the individual. Other religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church, have issues with the vaccines cultured on aborted fetal tissue. New York has a long and rich tradition of religious tolerance, A2371 rejects this proud and wildly successful history.
New York law clearly says, however, that affiliation with a religious group is irrelevant to a person's own religious beliefs, that is for each individual to decide. It isn't the place of Dinowitz to make healthcare decisions for all New Yorkers, or interfere in the longstanding beliefs of religious minorities. America was founded expressly to protect those rights.
These bills are radically outside prevailing practice in the United States where 47 states allow religious exemptions. Eighteen states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Texas, and a dozen others, allow exemptions for any reason. The overwhelming majority of developed democracies in the world allow parents the final say in what is injected into their children, including Canada, Japan, Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, etc.
There is no evidence that religious exemptions in New York are a barrier to achieving "herd immunity" or increase disease rates in New York. Nor has Dinowitz made any attempt to show how the fewer than 1% of New York students who have religious exemptions compromise public health.
Please oppose A2371.