HEALTH CHOICE
A battle is brewing in New York state over mandatory vaccinations for children attending school--any school. The Amish community is in the crosshairs, facing fines and jail for noncompliance.
“New York State’s Public Health Law is clear: children attending daycare and pre-K through 12th grade must receive all required doses of vaccines on the recommended schedule in order to attend or remain in school,” the New York Department of Health said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
In the 1960s the American Amish subculture pulled out of the public school system and created their own education system. It wasn't homeschool. It was more like the Laura Ingalls Wilder rural schools of yesteryear. The Amish paid for their own schools, hired their own teachers, and created a completely independent education system.
Now New York's mandated school attendance vaccine law extends into these schools and demands vaccination for these children against their parents' will. The Amish community is not of one mind on personal vaccine choice. Some parents are vaccinating and some are not, but Amish leadership is united in opposing a government mandate on their schools.
I was a college student in the 1970s when Ohio took Amish schools to court, accusing parents of truancy. The state's position against the chief defendant named Eli Wisner was that the Amish schools were not really schools. Only the public schools were authentic schools. In that case, the Amish went to bat for the entire parochial school option.
Ruling in favor of the Amish, Ohio Supreme Court created a test for religious convictions that as far as I know still holds today. Under the first Amendment's Free Exercise clause, what is protected? In that case, the court established a conviction vs. preference (not protected) litmus test.
To the best of my memory, here are some of the benchmarks:
1. Your religion must demand adherence to the conviction. In this famous case, Wisner held up his Bible as the final authority on belief and practice. He passed this test. He explained how the children, owned by God, were under the authority of parents, who in turn were obligated to train up their children in God's principles. He called public schools "Philistine."
2. Your position cannot depend on anyone else agreeing with you. You must be willing to be the only one in the world taking this position. If you need others to support you, it's a preference and not a conviction.
3. You will not change your position, no matter the punishment. From fines to jail time, your position is unalterable.
4. You must be able to articulate your position. It doesn't have to be flowery or in legalese, but you must be able to state your conviction with precision and clarity; it can't be an intuition, thought, or hunch.
The Amish won that case and literally changed the landscape of American elementary and secondary education. Parochial schools proliferated. The next big education court cases came when home schooling began in earnest during the early 1990s.
It appears to me that the Amish are again taking the brunt for the rest of the culture on this vaccine mandate. In the Wizner case, they contended that their schools were part of their church; they were not separate entities. That argument ended up winning the day. At that time, it was society demanding a certain type of education. Today, it is society demanding a certain kind of health protocol.
The arguments will be the same. I honor the Amish today, in their non-confrontational way, for understanding with clarity the societal ramifications of tyrannous criminalization toward minority positions. As author Peter Bane says, the most important thing to preserve in times of epochal change is the ability of the minority to exist and thrive. That's where innovation starts.
When you believe my health decisions are your business, I no longer have health choice autonomy. I no longer own me. God no longer owns me. You own me, and that's not a safe place. It's a new kind of slavery.
If the Amish go to jail, do you think New York will back down?
