WV Senate approves bill loosening state's vaccination requirements; bill now moves to the House

Yahoo

21-02-2025

Sen. Laura Wake Chapman, R-Ohio, who sponsored Senate Bill 460, loosening the state's strict vaccination laws, holds up a map illustration how many other states allow only medical exemptions to school vaccine requirements. The Senate passed the bill Friday with a vote of 20 to 12. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
A bill that would loosen West Virginia's school mandated vaccine laws took a step forward on Friday. The West Virginia Senate passed Senate Bill 460 with a vote of 20 to 12.
All 50 states require school children to be vaccinated against a series of infectious diseases like measles and polio. West Virginia has been among five states that has not allowed religious or philosophical exemptions to those requirements. The state has allowed only medical exemptions.
If Senate Bill 460 becomes law, families who want a religious exemption to those requirements would submit a written statement to their school or day care administrator saying that the state vaccine requirements cannot be met because they conflict with the parents' or emancipated child's religious or philosophical beliefs.
The bill, as it passed the Senate, also loosens the medical exemption procedure, something bill sponsor and Senate Health Committee Chair Laura Wakim Chapman, R-Ohio, argued is unfair.
Current law requires the medical provider of the family seeking a medical exemption to provide documentation of the medical need for the exemption to the state immunization officer for approval. The immunization officer position would be eliminated under SB 460, Wakim said.
Most of the debate on the floor Friday, which lasted more than an hour, was over religious rights, both of students and schools. Senators voted down an amendment that would have allowed the schools to set their own policies for vaccines, independent of the legislation.
Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brook, said the amendment would have corrected a 'grievous error,' in the bill of not allowing schools run by churches to require vaccinations if they're a part of their faith.
'Many states have religious exemptions, and West Virginia is the outlier in that but the absolute majority of those states also allow for a school that is run by a church to determine its own vaccination policy in line with the tenets of its faith,' he said.
The Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, with more than 4,600 students in 24 schools statewide, has supported the state's current vaccine laws. Last year, after the Legislature passed House Bill 5105, a bill that would have allowed private and parochial schools to set their own vaccine requirements, the church said it would keep the requirements for its school the same. A spokesman for the diocese said the church is monitoring the bill making its way through the statehouse.
'We have always maintained our constitutional right to order our schools as we see fit in accord with our beliefs,' Tim Bishop, director of marketing and communications for the diocese, said in a statement.
Weld, who voted against the legislation, said the bill uses the power of the state to tell a church how it should operate. A line in the bill says that schools and day care centers shall not 'prohibit an individual exercising an exemption pursuant to this section from participating in extracurricular activities or from attending school-based events.'
'I cannot imagine what the reaction would be in this body if we read a news article that the state of California, their legislature passed a law that required all priests, pastors, reverends, ministers, rabbis, to marry every couple that comes through their doors,' Weld said. 'It would be unconstitutional, because the state should not dictate to a church how to operate.'
Church-run schools may have the option to become 'micro-schools' to have their own vaccination policies, he said, but that would disqualify them from participating in athletics through the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activity Commission, he said.
Sen. Tom Takubo, a Kanawha County Republican and physician, also voted against the bill. Takubo said the state has a lot of problems and ranks last in a lot of health outcomes, among other issues.
'In this instance, in immunizations, where we can protect the most vulnerable of our society — children — against preventable, and I think that's a key thing that everybody needs to remember, these are preventable childhood diseases that we're protecting our children [from], we rank No. 1, No. 1 one in the country,' Takubo said. 'I know there are arguments that they say, 'well, we other states have different exemptions.' Other states also have a lot of outbreaks, and they have a lot of death, a lot of morbidity.'
In Texas, a measles outbreak has now spread to 90 people. Of those, only five were confirmed to have been vaccinated. Sixteen of those 90 people have been hospitalized because of the virus, which is highly contagious and can lead to serious complications and death.
'Everything we do, we often compare ourselves to our neighbors and our neighbors' children have all suffered at the hands of preventable childhood disease, but we have a wall protecting West Virginia, protecting the children of West Virginia. I'm very proud of, very proud of,' Takubo said. 'So why? When you're No. 1, do you want to tear that down?'
Proponents of the bill have argued that the law as it is now violates families' rights by prohibiting children school entry unless they get a series of vaccinations.
'We, right now in this state, are prohibiting a public and private education to individuals,' said Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson. 'We are prohibiting kids, children from participating in sports and extracurriculars. We are prohibiting them from summer camps. We are prohibiting them from 4-H. we are prohibiting them from FFA, we are prohibiting them from — there's a whole long list.'
Reading directly from the bill, she said: 'A number of citizens have religious and moral objections to one or more of the vaccines on the compulsory immunization list contained in this section. Compulsory immunization forces those West Virginians to choose between their religious belief and their children's fundamental right to a public education. Forcing West Virginians to vaccinate their children despite their religious and moral objections substantially burdens the free exercise of religion in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia and, further, is against the public health policy of this state.'
'Now, that's not law yet, but that is what we are saying with this legislation,' Rucker said.
Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, who also opposed the legislation, said the bill is likely to result in a lawsuit. The Catholic Church and others indicated in its statement it will go to court to protect its religious freedom, he said.
'So, last chance everybody,' Woelfel said. 'That judge in that case needs legislative history. He needs people to get up and tell the world what the compelling state interest is to impose the will of the government on a religious institution. So let's get up and say that, and sadly, you're going to lose the whole bill when this bill is declared unconstitutional. Two or three or four years from now, there will be a stay. In the meantime, [you'll] lose your whole bill.'
Chapman said that mothers who have seen their children harmed by vaccines want the legislation.
'They don't want to vaccinate anymore of their children or give them anymore,' she said. 'But guess what? Those children are being denied their education. We've all had those mothers show up at our doors.'
She said the bill would stand up to scrutiny.
'The senator from Brooke says it's a grievous error to pass this bill. This is existing language in the law,' she said. 'The governor didn't add private and parochial schools to this bill. I didn't add private and parochial schools to this bill. People in this very body 10 years ago added them to the law, and now they suddenly have a difference of opinion and think private and parochial schools shouldn't follow our public health laws.'
'If that's the case… then our private school laws don't have to follow our fire code, our sanitation laws or our public health laws, just get rid of it,' she said.
The Republican-led legislature has tried for years to loosen the state's strict vaccination laws. Last year, after lawmakers passed House Bill 5105, which would have allowed private and parochial schools to have their own vaccination requirements, former Gov. Jim Justice vetoed the legislation. Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order requiring the state to allow religious exemptions to those requirements on his second day in office.
The bill will next go to the House of Delegates for consideration.
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