LAL #018 — Childhood Vaccinations: Fighting to Preserve the Religious Exemption

Law and Legitimacy

I support the religious exemption to childhood vaccination and I will happily fight for repeal of the law abolishing it in Connecticut.

The law scares me. It should scare you, too. Who gets to decide the goals by which you live your life? Certainly not the state.

Jesus once asked, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” Socrates similarly opined: “The really important thing is not to live, but to live well.” This week, Connecticut eliminated the religious exemption to childhood vaccinations. Thus, each and every child starting state or public school henceforth will be required to be vaccinated against certain viruses, regardless of whether their parents object. My office has been retained to seek to repeal this law in state and federal courts. It is a challenge I welcome with open arms. I don’t deny the efficacy of science. I have been vaccinated. I would recommend to my children that they have my grandchildren vaccinated.

But I respect the right of those who feel differently to follow a different course. I don’t want the state compelling behavior inconsistent with core philosophical or religious beliefs. Science is the domain of instrumental reason. We accomplish certain things we want to do by means of applied intelligence and technology. Scientific research is a good thing. But science doesn’t set life’s larger goals.

Science doesn’t answer the core questions that philosophy and religion seek to address: What makes life worth living? What is the nature and destiny of humankind? (I dare not say “man,” no, not in this time of extraordinary commitment to diversity for the sake of diversity.) Science can do no more than set the minimum conditions for material flourishing in a community. Safe drinking water saves lives and improves health. Great. Vaccinations also save lives. That’s great, too. But what if science oversteps and seeks to impose standards so focused on the lowest common denominator that our souls are trapped within the steel cages of instrumental reason? Yes, China was effective in fighting COVID-19: if you did not agree to stay sequestered in your home, the state could, and did, weld your door shut, with you in your home. I don ’t want to live that way. A republic led by virtuous souls is even more terrifying that a society of censors. None of us get out of here alive. Pretending the state’s goal ought to be to impose the conditions necessary to keep all alive as long as possible sounds noble, but it comes at a chilling cost, the flattening of our spiritual landscape.

I support a parent’s right to raise their children by the best lights available to the parents.

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