Four California mothers have taken their legal battle against a 2016 law removing religious exemptions for school vaccinations to a higher court, asserting that the legislation infringes on their First Amendment rights.
The mothers, supported by Advocates for Faith & Freedom attorneys, filed an appeal on August 8 with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after a U.S. District Court dismissed their previous claims in 2023.
The mothers argue that SB 277, signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown after passing through the California legislature, discriminates against their religious beliefs by eliminating personal belief exemptions, including those based on religion, which had been in place since 1961. They claim that the law unfairly targets their faith while allowing other secular exemptions, forcing them to choose between their beliefs and their children’s right to education.
The lawsuit, initially filed in November 2023, contends that their religious objections are based on concerns about vaccines developed using fetal cell, which contradict their faith. They argue that this prevents them from vaccinating their children, effectively banning them from attending school.
Sara Royce, mother of three, believes that “vaccinating her children would make her ‘complicit in abortion’ due to the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine development.”
Similarly, Tiffany Brown, also a mother of three, and Kristi Caraway, who is raising ten children, share similar beliefs. Brown has reported vaccine-related injuries in her children, and one of Caraway’s children received a medical exemption following such an injury.
Sarah Clark, who homeschools her children through a charter program, also opposes vaccinations, viewing them as “a foreign substance” that “violates biblical principles.” Her lawsuit states, “Appellants’ complaint establishes that SB 277 violates their sincerely held religious beliefs, and the cost of exercising their faith is the loss of the fundamental right to private and public schooling in California.”
The mothers further criticized legislative hostility toward religious objectors. They cited California state Sen. Richard Pan, who reportedly said people who “opt out of vaccines should be opted out of American society,” and Maral Farsi, a legislative official, who called objecting parents “oxygen thieves who don’t care about children.”
Erin Mersino, vice president of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, emphasized the significance of holding public officials accountable. She stated, “Before the state is allowed to ban schoolchildren from all public and private schools in California, it must demonstrate that doing so is necessary. It is hard to prove [the] necessity to single out religious exemptions for extinction, however, when the state allows so many secular exemptions which seemingly pose the same harm.”
