Newport Beach, California – Physicians for Informed Consent (PIC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization focused on science and statistics, has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Connecticut parents’ right of informed refusal to vaccinate their schoolchildren in the case We The Patriots USA v. Connecticut Office Of Early Childhood Development (United States Supreme Court Case Number 23-643). The lead plaintiff organization, We The Patriots USA, is among the 300-plus members of PIC’s Coalition for Informed Consent (CIC)—whose purpose is the repeal of mandatory vaccination laws.

According to the Connecticut parents’ petition for writ of certiorari, seeking to uphold freedom of religion:

“For over fifty years, Connecticut provided religious exemptions to its mandatory student vaccination requirements, as forty-four other states and the District of Columbia still do. Responding to concerns that school vaccination rates were falling, Connecticut repealed its religious exemption on April 28, 2021. Its new school vaccination mandate broadened the pre-existing medical exemption and added a ‘legacy’ exemption allowing K-12 students who claimed a religious exemption prior to April 28, 2021 to attend school unvaccinated for the remainder of their K-12 educations. The mandate requires vaccinations for all non-exempt children attending public, private, and religious daycares, pre-schools, kindergartens, and K-12 schools. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-204a (hereinafter, ‘§ 10204a’).

Connecticut’s revised mandate severely penalizes religious parents and children whose faith does not permit them to receive the mandated vaccinations by denying them access to the foundational institution of our republic: education in any school of their choice. These parents have three options: (1) contravene their faith to obtain schooling for their children, (2) homeschool their children from grades K-12, or (3) relocate to a state that offers religious exemptions.”

Physicians for Informed Consent was founded in 2015 after parents in California were confronted with the same three options after being legally denied their right of informed refusal to vaccinate their schoolchildren. Since then, PIC has been working to educate the public on the risks of childhood infections versus the risks of their respective vaccines. PIC’s amicus brief highlighted three key points for the Court:

1. Unequal Treatment of Religious and Secular Vaccine Exemptions Is a Recurring Legal Issue Splitting Decisions in Lower Courts, and Causing Legislative Confusion, for Decades
2. Ethical Reasons Support the Connecticut Parents
3. Scientific Reasons Support the Connecticut Parents

According to PIC’s general counsel Greg Glaser, “Federal courts in different parts of the country have been reaching different conclusions on the issue of religious and medical exemptions to vaccine mandates for school attendance. Several equal protection cases have moved through the court system with situations where a school allows secular (medical) exemptions but unfairly disallows religious exemptions. A court in Mississippi recently found such inequality unlawful, and upheld the right to religious exemption. The same issue is now before the United States Supreme Court, but in Connecticut.”

The PIC amicus brief delivers data on infectious diseases and vaccines and informs the Supreme Court that the “scientific data currently available demonstrate that vaccines mandated for school attendance have not been proven safer than the infections they were designed to prevent.”

CASE INFORMATION
United States Supreme Court Case Number
We The Patriots USA v. Connecticut Office Of Early Childhood Development
23-643