N.J. bill to remove religion as reason to avoid vaccinating kids enrages parents at hearing

UPDATE: N.J. Senate calls off vote on vaccines, sponsor says

Unpersuaded by hundreds of pleading and occasionally hostile parents, a state Senate panel voted Thursday to eliminate religion as an acceptable reason for New Jersey children to avoid vaccines required for school attendance.

After seven years of stalled efforts to compel better vaccine compliance and a recent reemergence of measles, state lawmakers are moving quickly to end the religious exemption that allowed 14,000 students to decline their shots last year.

The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee approved the bill (A3818) by a 6-4 vote Thursday. Even before the hearing, the measure was listed on Monday’s agenda for action by the full 40-member body.

But hundreds of parents amassed outside the Statehouse in Trenton anyway. The crowds started arriving hours before the afternoon hearing. Hundreds of sign-waving, child-toting parents queued up in the first-floor hallway waiting for space inside the committee room. Before the hearing began, the audience recited the “Serenity Prayer."

They said they were outraged by what they see as government intrusion in violation of their First Amendment right of religious freedom. They vowed to pull their children out of school or move out of New Jersey.

Alan Weller, president of the New Jersey chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said as doctors, “we all have a responsibility to protect...children in schools who cannot be vaccinated” because of a compromised immune system.

"Your right to practice religion freely does not include...exposing the community or a child to a communicable disease,” Weller said.

Many opponents say they object because embryonic tissue extracted from aborted fetuses in the 1960s is used to make the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. Others said they trusted that God had created their bodies strong enough without vaccines.

“I love God with my whole heart,” said 7-year-old Emelia Walls of Cape May. “He made our immune systems perfect. We take really good care of our bodies because that makes God happy."

Emelia, a second-grader, said she would be “heartbroken" if the law passed and she had to leave school. “I have a bright future ahead of me. I am going to change the world,” she said.

Pediatric oncologist Andrew Silverman at Jersey Shore Medical Center asked the committee to consider his 6-year-old leukemia patient, who has undergone aggressive chemotherapy. The boy’s mother informed him there is a child in his first-grade class who is not vaccinated for religious reasons. Should he go to school?

“The oncologists in my practice agree, unvaccinated students are a major risk,” he said. “It’s not safe for him to attend school.”

The bill would only allow children to seek an exemption for medical reasons. The state Health Department would define which health conditions would qualify, and a physician, advance practice nurse or physician assistant must verify in writing the child had the disqualifying illness, according to the bill. The law would take effect six months after Gov. Phil Murphy signs it, if he does.

The bill gained momentum in January, after a measles outbreak dominated the news. There have been 19 confirmed cases of measles this year in New Jersey, and 1,276 nationwide.

People attend a hearing on a vaccine bill. The Senate health committee held a hearing on a vaccine bill, which would abolish a parent's right to reject vaccines for their children, at the Statehouse Annex, in Trenton, December 12, 2019. Mary Iuvone | For NJ Advance Med

State Assemblyman Herb Conaway, D-Burlington, a physician who chairs the Assembly Health Committee and bill sponsor, decided to rewrite his bill to call for an outright ban on religious exemptions as measles cases have surfaced. The Assembly changed the text without a public hearing.

After nearly two hours of tearful and bitter debate, the vote was split along party lines, with five Democrats voting yes and four Republicans voting no. Three of the Democrats who voted yes substituted permanent health committee members, raising questions among opponents that they were pulling strings to guarantee the controversial bill’s passage.

“On balance, this is the best route we can take as a society, as a matter of public health and public safety,” state Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, the chairman of the committee and a co-sponsor of the bill.

State Sen. Michael Testa, R-Cumberland, voted no, calling the legislation “unconstitutional and un-American.”

State Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, said he doesn’t oppose vaccines but voted no because “I am not going to take away people’s rights.”

“Even though I would make a different choice from the people in this room, it’s their right to be wrong,” Cardinale said. “It’s their own right to follow their conscience.”

New Jersey would be the sixth state to abolish religious exemptions for childhood vaccines. The five states are California, Maine, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia.

Dr. Richard Roberts of Lakewood speaks in support of a bill which would abolish a parent's right to reject vaccines for their children based on their religious convictions, He holds a book he published which he said explains how vaccinations do not violate Orthodox Jewish teachings. December 12, 2019. Mary Iuvone | For NJ Advance Media

Susan K. Livio may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.