ACLU loses battle against West Virginia’s religious exemption for vaccines 

A West Virginia court has upheld the right of religious families to exempt their children from public school vaccine requirements.

In January, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed an executive order affirming the right of parents to opt their children out of vaccines on religious grounds. The order cited the state’s Equal Protection for Religion Act of 2023

Common religious concerns about vaccines include protecting the sanctity of the human body, the use of aborted fetal cells, or the use of ingredients that violate dietary laws.

Morrisey also noted the vaccine mandate is currently being challenged as unconstitutional and directed school officials to ensure that “students will not be denied access to public education because of their religious objections to compulsory vaccination.”

In May, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Mountain States Justice (MSJ) filed a lawsuit against the state, alleging Morrisey was overstepping his constitutional authority.

“Nothing in relevant statutory or case law permits the Commissioner [of Public Health] to exceed the authority that the Legislature has granted him,” the complaint read, “certainly not merely because the Governor has requested that he disregard the rule of law.”

The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of two families with immunocompromised children.

“We are seeing the devastating effects of loosening vaccine requirements across the country,” said MSJ’s Executive Director Sarah Brown. “Parents should be able to know their child will be safe when they send them off to school.”

However, the lawsuit was dismissed by Circuit Judge Kenneth Ballard on July 23 for procedural reasons.

“The petitioners here failed to satisfy the requirements of West Virginia Code 55-17-3 which requires either a …30-day notice or a pleading of injunctive relief,” Ballard said, according to local media.

“I don’t think you appropriately sought this injunctive relief. I think you only interjected it at the end in an effort to get around this rule.”

Morrisey celebrated the ruling on social media, saying it was the “first skirmish of a longer fight.

“West Virginia is a radical outlier when it comes to onerous vaccine mandates – one of only five states in the nation without a statutorily-based, religious exemption.”

The other four states are California, New York, Connecticut and Maine.

Besides those five, every other state offers either a religious or personal exemption to public school vaccine mandates, in addition to medical exemptions.

“Yet [West Virginia] has a clear religious freedom law and cares deeply about this issue!” Morrisey concluded.

West Virginia’s public schools currently require students to be vaccinated against chickenpox, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and polio.

According to the CDC’s vaccine schedule, students would receive 15 shots by the age of 6, with three additional jabs later in adolescence.