Religious objections to jabs not sacred
Consider religious exemptions the next battlefield for those who oppose COVID-19 vaccinations. Credit: AP
Whenever America has enlisted its citizens to fight for their country, conscientious objectors have emerged. Among them, often, are Mennonites, Quakers and others, whose faith encourages peace and repudiates violence. Generations of them have refused to go to war, at times pledging to serve their country in other ways.
But the term "conscientious objector" originally had nothing to do with war. Instead, it emerged first in connection with exceptions added to the mandated smallpox vaccine, initially in England in the late 1800s, and then in the United States. Eventually, that morphed into the religious exemptions that exist today for vaccines. In New York, that exemption now is just for those 18 and older, after the State Legislature banned it for children in the wake of the measles outbreak several years ago.
Now, as mandates requiring the COVID-19 vaccine become a reality, religious exemptions, and those who call themselves conscientious objectors, are back.
Consider it the next battlefield in the ongoing war against the pandemic.
In a nation that has fiercely protected religious freedom for centuries, it seems only right to be wary of requiring anything that might violate someone’s religious practices. It seems appropriate to worry about religious discrimination. It seems appropriate to err on the side of recognizing any religious objections as legitimate.
But even that theory has its limits. And on this front, organized religion generally does not oppose vaccination. Pope Francis called getting vaccinated "an act of love." And even religions that once prohibited it, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, no longer do.
So, that leaves most people to object as individuals, based on their own interpretations and beliefs.
But the world of religious exemptions also has become a strangely organized affair. Not by religious clerics, pastors or rabbis, but by attorneys and advocates who provide extensive guidance on how to write a successful religious exemption request, including even the right words to use and Scripture to quote.
In that context, is a religious exemption to vaccination really about religion? And, when the nation is in the grips of a pandemic that has changed our very way of life, where’s the promise, the social contract of sorts to serve, to benefit society, to care about the greater good, as generations before have done?
The exemption effort has gained an urgency and larger following in recent days, as the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine intensifies the push to require the vaccine for work, school and play. Those who’ve objected to the shot all along now may turn to the exemption as a way out.
Colleges and employers are pushing back on those demanding an exception. Anecdotally, they’re denying far more requests than they accept. They’re asking detailed questions to ascertain a request’s legitimacy. And they’re seeking letters of support from religious leaders.
Those might be hard to come by. The New York Archdiocese has said there’s "no basis" for a priest to issue a religious exemption. But for others, a brochure that’s spreading through some Jewish communities, which primarily focuses on medical misinformation but also features rabbis who say the vaccine is "forbidden," might seem to fulfill the need.
But even for the most valid of faith-based concerns, the balance tips when public health and human life are at stake. A Jewish physician knows he can violate the Sabbath to save a life. And saving a life takes on new meaning in the middle of a pandemic that already has killed more than 628,000 nationwide.
Perhaps that’s where the truly "conscientious" stop objecting.
Columnist Randi F. Marshall's opinions are her own.
Randi Marshall is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
