[Magdalen] Federal court backs law removing religious exemption from vaccinations.

[Grace Cangialosi]

I lost my first chance to see "Gone With the Wind" because of fears about polio! I was ten and living on Japan. Some of the maids wanted to take their American charges to see it, and my parents wouldn't let me go. There were fears about being in crowds, especially in the summer. (I never actually saw GWTW until about five years ago, when I decided I'd better rent it!)

One of my elderly parishioners in the mountains, who had been one of the CCC "boys" who had helped build Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, told me about being quarantined up there for three months back in the 1930's during a diphtheria epidemic. Two of his siblings died of it.

Do they still vaccinate against diphtheria? I remember the old DPT shots and boosters.

> On Aug 31, 2016, at 10:34 AM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Heck, I remember BEING quarantined for measles and mumps (possibly rubella
> too, although my recollections are a little foggy and run together) in that
> awful year I was in 4th grade, when we had everything *except* chicken pox,
> which we'd had earlier! And it was the summer just before that I came home
> to learn that a neighbor boy in my grade (but not in my class) had died of
> polio. These idiot parents don't have a CLUE and I wish I could slap it
> into them!
> 
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> This issue is so complex and fueled by ignorance IMNSHO. It is definitely
>> not only the religious fundies who oppose vaccinations.
>> It makes me feel REALLY old when I realize that we are several generations
>> removed from being part of or having experiential connections to the days
>> of extreme quarantine where people were lawfully confined to their homes,
>> or childhood deaths or blindness from measles, crippling and death from
>> polio and little boys rendered 'sterile' by mumps. Somehow mandated medical
>> preventative care has become a vast government conspiracy while at the same
>> time it has taken on the overtone of Big Brother.  Is our news media too
>> young to tell the stories that predate their birth??
>> 
>> Lynn
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> www.ichthysdesigns.com
>> 
>> When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would
>> not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you
>> gave me'. attributed to Erma Bombeck
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 30, 2016, at 11:16 PM, M J _Mike_ Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Denying a child a vaccination (especially in today's world!) is a valid
>> exercise of religious freedom.  Right.
>> 
>> Keep talkin', Rome (and mindless Fundies).  The rest of us will not stop
>> reminding you that your personal version of "religious freedom exercise"
>> has no right and decent connection to the health of the general populace,
>> much less children.
>> 
>> *****
>> 
>> Catholic World News
>> Federal court backs law removing religious exemption from vaccinations
>> August 30, 2016
>> 
>> A federal judge has ruled that California’s interest in protecting the
>> health of its citizens takes precedence over the First Amendment right to
>> free exercise of religion.
>> 
>> US District Court Judge Dana Sabraw issued his ruling in response to a
>> lawsuit filed against a new state law that removed the personal-belief
>> exemption from the mandatory childhood vaccination law.
>> 
>> “Even outside the context of vaccination laws, the Supreme Court has
>> reiterated the fundamental rights under the First Amendment to the United
>> States Constitution do not overcome the State’s interest in protecting a
>> child’s health,” the judge wrote in his decision.
>> 
>> “The Constitution does not require the provision of a religious exemption
>> to vaccination requirements, much less a personal belief exemption,” the
>> judge added.
>>