Research Guides: Student Project: Compulsory Vaccination Law In New York State: Constitutional Sources

Amendment I

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

The First Amendment guarantees Freedom and Free Exercise of Religion. Government accommodation of religious practice has long been recognized as essential to religious liberty in the United States. If state statutes or policies become a millstone for religious practice, the government may establish narrowly construed exemptions or accommodations for those religious beliefs.

The arguments for religious freedom and free exercise thereof have been successfully used in fights for religious exemption to compulsory vaccination for adults and minors alike.

Vaccination & Religion Case Law

Compelling vaccinations in order to protect public health does not impinge on a citizen's constitutional right to free exercise of religion. However, exemptions are intended for people who hold sincere religious or spiritual beliefs opposing vaccination. Therefore, if the state enforced a vaccination policy and mandated an immunization practice, it would be an infringement on that citizen's right to exercise his beliefs.

Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)
more...less...
The court held that an individual's religious beliefs do not excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the state is free to regulate...Conscientious scruples do not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieve the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs. The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990)
Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, 44 A.2d 333 (N.J. 1947)
more...less...
The First Amendment applied to state and federal law equally.
Mason v. General Brown Cent. School Dist., 851 F.2d 47 (2d Cir. 1988)
more...less...
Parents were not entitled to claim a religious exemption from immunization for their son under either state law or the free exercise of religion guarantee because their objections to immunization were scientifically and not religiously grounded.
Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944)
more...less...
The court ruled the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the State can neither supply nor hinder. There is a private realm of family life which the Sate cannot enter. But the family itself is not beyond regulation in the public interest, as against a claim of religious liberty. And neither rights of religion nor rights of parenthood are beyond limitation. Acting to guard the general interest in youth's well being, the State as parens patriae may restrict the parent's control by requiring school attendance, regulating or prohibiting the child's labor, and in many other ways. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944)
Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879)
more...less...
The court recognized that, under the Free Exercise clause, laws cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, however, they may interfere with religious practices.
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963)
more...less...
Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities, nor employ the taxing power to inhibit the dissemination of particular religious views.
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)
more...less...
The court emphasized the distinction between conduct or actions, which the government may bar religious exemptions from a compulsory education law. Such an act is expressly permitted. This decision also emphasized the protection of state interference with practices vital to religious life in circumstances where the practices have a relatively small effect on state interests.

Amendment X

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

U.S. Const. amend. X.

The police power of the states as guaranteed is plenary in function. The power belongs to the state legislature and allows such laws to be enacted that affect public security, welfare, health, justice and morality. Therefore, as argued under Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the state has a constitutionally granted power to enact mandatory vaccination laws for the security and welfare of its citizens.

Constitution of the United States of America

Articles

Free Exercise Clause Vaccination & Religious Exemptions

Amendment XIV

"No state shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

U.S. Const. amend. XIV § cl. 4-5

The Fourteenth Amendment arguments regarding substantive due process rights have been used to raise issues of liberty interest in relation to compulsory vaccination mandates. The question is often regarding the guarantee of that protects United States residents against arbitrary legislative actions.

Liberty Interest

Liberty is defined as "freedom from arbitrary or undue external restraint, especially by a government."Black's Law Dictionary 14(c) (10th ed. 2014)
Lawton v. Steele 152 U.S. 133 (1894)
more...less...
It is well within a citizens constitutional right to be free from unwanted intrusion regarding vaccine mandates. However, a state can lawfully enforce a mandatory vaccination law/ program through its police power function, and avoid a constitutional entanglement so long as the legislation deals with public protection or a health or welfare related interest.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).
more...less...
“[Liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 626 (1923).
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)
more...less...
The court held that privacy is one of the "penumbral rights" formed by the "emanations" of the express guarantees of the bill of rights.The enumerated rights included in privacy are marriage, abortion, procreation, contraception, and the right to refuse lifesaving treatment. A "governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms”. The notion of police intervention in ones home is not only unfounded, but repulsive to the notions of privacy. If the notion of penumbral privacy was novel, it certainly seemed less so when based upon the settled line of authority was said to establish.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479,484-85 (1965)
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972)
more...less...
The court held that if the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual ...to be free from unwanted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person, unless said intrusion is narrowly tailored for a specific state interest.
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453 (1972)
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
more...less...
The court held that there is a private realm of family life which the state cannot enter. These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of person-hood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

Personal Autonomy & Bodily Integrity

Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942)
more...less...
The right to have offspring is a fundamental right, requiring a compelling state interest to interfere with it.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)
more...less...
The right of a married couple to privacy is protected by the Constitution.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
more...less...
The Court held that, in regard to abortions during the first trimester, the decision must be left to the judgment of the pregnant woman’s doctor. In regard to second trimester pregnancies, states may promote their interests in the mother’s health by regulating abortion procedures related to the health of the mother. Regarding third trimester pregnancies, states may promote their interests in the potentiality of human life by regulating or even prohibiting abortion, except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

The Supreme Court held that litigation involving pregnancy, which is “capable of repetition, yet evading review,” is an exception to the general rule that an actual controversy must exist at each stage of judicial review, and not merely when the action is initiated.

The Court held that while 28 U.S.C. § 1253 does not authorize a party seeking only declaratory relief to appeal directly to the Supreme Court, review is not foreclosed when the case is brought on appeal from specific denial of injunctive relief and the arguments on the issues of both injunctive and declaratory relief are necessarily identical.

The Does’ complaint seeking injunctive relief was based on contingencies which might or might not occur and was therefore too speculative to present an actual case or controversy. It was unnecessary for the Court to decide Hallford’s case for injunctive relief because once the Court found the laws unconstitutional, the Texas authorities were prohibited from enforcing them.
In re Karen Quinlan, 355 A.2d 647 (N.J. 1976).
more...less...
The courts held that while the states have a claimed interest to the preservation and sanctity of human life; the unwritten constitutional right of privacy to exist in the penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Presumably this right is broad enough to encompass a patient's decision to decline medical treatment under certain circumstances, in much the same way as it is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision to terminate pregnancy under certain conditions.”The court evinced, further, that a state's interest contra weakens and the individual's right to privacy grows as the degree of bodily invasion increases and the prognosis dims.
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dep't. of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990)
more...less...
A protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment yields to the State's interest in preventing disease.
In re A.C., 573 A.2d 1235 (D.C. 1990)
more...less...
the court held that “any person has the right to make an informed choice, if competent to do so, to accept or forego medical treatment. The doctrine of informed consent, based on this principle and rooted in the concept of bodily integrity, is ingrained in the common law… Furthermore, the right to informed consent also encompasses a right to informed refusal.” Whats more, the court declared that “courts do not compel one person to permit a significant intrusion upon his or her bodily integrity for the benefit of another person's health.
Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990)
more...less...
The Supreme Court recognized that involuntary administration of medication violated inmates' constitutional rights. This was because the court believed that forcible medical intervention was a “substantial interference with [a] persons liberty” and may lead to “serious, even fatal side effects.”