A devout Rockland County couple is suing the New York Archdiocese for barring their daughter from attending a Catholic preschool because she hasn’t been fully vaccinated.
The couple, who filed the suit anonymously, charges they’re being subjected to religious discrimination and are seeking a court order allowing their 4-year-old to attend the St. Margaret School in Pearl River after the archdiocese turned down their request for a religious exemption.
“Plaintiffs sought the exemption because they hold sincere and genuine religious beliefs, based upon Christian doctrine and Christian teachings that are contrary to vaccinating, that prevent them from injecting diseases into their bodies,” the suit says.
They also cite a moral objection to how the vaccines were created.
“Jane Doe’s” dad said his daughter had received some vaccinations as a baby, but they halted them because it “felt wrong.” He said those feelings were borne out when they did more research about vaccines and discovered that many are grown in cell cultures that were obtained from two human fetuses that were aborted in 1964 and 1970.
In an affidavit, Doe’s mom said, “I am pro-life and have sincere and genuine religious beliefs that are contrary to vaccinating because aborted fetal cells are used in vaccinations.”
The couple applied to St. Margaret in January. While other archdioceses around the country allow religious exemptions from vaccinations, the school follows the tenets of the New York Archdiocese, which does not.
“For the safety and well-being of our students and school communities, we do have a policy that all students receive vaccinations. All of our parents agree to this as a condition to sending their child to one of our schools,” said Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese.
Doe’s dad, who said he has no issue with reactive medicine, said clashing with the Archdiocese “has been one of the most stressful things we’ve ever dealt with in our lives, and I’m a military veteran.”
Additional reporting by Dan Mangan