Anti-Vaccination Advocates Get Huge Win as NJ Vaccine Bill Fails

New Jersey Democratic Senate Leaders failed again yesterday to garner enough votes for a controversial bill that would have eliminated the religious exemption for mandatory childhood vaccines in all New Jersey public Schools.

On Monday, the bill, S2173, failed in the Senate as state lawmakers came to grips that they were shy a single vote from the bill passing. The defeat came after a last-minute attempt to amend the contested legislation, which ultimately garnered new opposition.

The months-long effort inspired vigorous protests at the Statehouse in Trenton from hundreds of advocates who believe requiring childhood vaccines would violate their personal and religious beliefs.

While the law to abolish the religious exemption for children’s vaccinations has failed to pass for now, it is surely inevitable that this fight will continue. Sponsors of the bill have vowed to immediately try again.

“We’re ready to go to war on this, and we will,” said NJ State Senator, Steven Sweeney. “We will pass this bill. It’s not an easy one, and a lot of bills we do aren’t easy and take time to get through. But this is about public health. It’s about protecting people.”

Pro choice advocates must also remain vigilant and ready for an ongoing fight. Slowly but surely, we have given over so much control of our constitutional freedoms already that it’s just a matter of time before we hand over all of our rights.

In reality, we have overcome the dangers of measles as though it is nothing more than any other childhood diseases like chickenpox or the flu which of course can cause possible death in very rare cases. Children and adults alike have died from flu. Will the flu vaccine become mandatory too soon?

Adults also die from the flu and the very extreme chickenpox or shingles as well. Should we all be dictated to be vaccinated? After all, schools are not the only places where there is close contact on a daily basis. How about workplaces? How about places of worship and other public spaces that people frequent everyday? Why don’t they just require all of us to take every vaccine ever created?

What will be the next vaccine that will be forced upon our children? And let’s not forget about religious freedoms and personal liberties that have been guaranteed by our constitution. Do those freedoms not mean anything to anyone anymore?

State Senator Loretta Weinberg, one of the sponsors of the bill to halt religious exemption stated “Though I understand the passion of those opposed, fundamentally, this is not a personal choice and in society it is the duty of healthy members to work together to protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

This fight is about supporting families having the right to make educated medical decisions for their own children alongside their personal physicians.

It IS about personal choice. How we parent and protect our children, as much as our elected officials would like to take it away from us, is OUR choice.