Welcoming Greg Glaser, Esq. as our guest author to bring us more information on the recent filings OIC has performed on behalf of parents in Connecticut. You can subscribe to Greg Glaser’s newsletter and follow Physicians for Informed Consent (PIC) here:
Last month we shared that PIC wrote an amicus curiae brief supporting Connecticut parents’ right to refuse to vaccinate their children for the purpose of school attendance in a Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) case. Now, we are excited to announce that this week the lawsuit has moved closer to the rare opportunity of being heard by the Supreme Court—as SCOTUS has requested a response from the State of Connecticut to the accusations set before it.
We The Patriots USA, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, is among more than 345 member organizations of PIC’s Coalition for Informed Consent (CIC)—whose purpose is the repeal of mandatory vaccination laws—and we are deeply grateful for their work. Please, if possible, lend them your support by the next SCOTUS deadline of March 6, 2024.
It is upon the shoulders of all our organizations’ work, from those who were founded decades ago to those who were established after the pandemic, that some of us will reach SCOTUS and bring us closer to ending vaccine mandates for all—and so we are so grateful to every single person and organization that has helped us all reach this point.
In solidarity,
Shira
Shira Miller, M.D.
Founder and President Physicians for Informed Consent
Greg
Greg Glaser, Esq. PIC General Counsel & National Coalition Director
Atty Glaser provides added insights on this We the People filing, with legal commentators predicting the Supreme Court vote:
Mainstream legal commentators have signaled that the Supreme Court is likely to vote 5 to 4, and will uphold religious exemptions to vaccine mandates. See e.g.,
Tellingly, two additional Justices went out of their way to signal they might well agree with the dissent [in Mills], as have other federal judges. Justice Barrett wrote a concurrence, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, making clear that the reason she refrained from granting emergency relief was procedural—that, in her view, the relief should be requested through the normal certiorari route rather than by way of the emergency docket. See, e.g., Doe v. San Diego Unified Sch. Dist., 19 F.4th 1173, 1185 n.6 (9th Cir. 2021) (Ikuta, J., dissenting) (arguing that a state school’s “medical exemption” which involves “a student’s own physician confirm[ing] . . . that an underlying medical problem makes the vaccine unsafe for their patient . . . may be an example of the ‘individualized exemptions’ that render government regulations not generally applicable”)
...
The free exercise vaccine-mandate cases demonstrate that the Supreme Court’s new doctrine, couching free exercise as an equality right, is far more protective of religious objectors than was the Court’s previous doctrine framing free exercise as a liberty right. Indeed, this new doctrine has already achieved what was previously thought unfathomable: conferring upon religious objectors the right of vaccine refusal.
We the Patriots presented simple and clear facts: parents have religious objection. And the lower court record is clean (motion to dismiss) and considered (long opinions by lower courts), and the legal standard most favorable to plaintiff (motion to dismiss).
We the Patriots chose the basic fact pattern and legal argument that was most represented during Covid, where equal protection sometimes won and sometimes lost without any favorable fact pattern either way. As their cert petition states, "this case presents the question cleanly. It does not require the Court to address the question in [] the complicating presence of nuanced factual disputes.... if Connecticut’s overriding objective was protecting students’ health, it would abolish the medical exemption and require children for whom vaccinations are medically contraindicated to pursue education at home, just as it requires religiously-objecting children to do (unless they are fortunate enough to have a legacy exemption)."
The We The Patriots petition for certiorari narrowed the case to one issue: equal protection. The plaintiffs did not argue for a separate due process right (foreclosed by Dobbs). This shows the Plaintiffs are in harmony with the Court's wisdom (or foresight) about the danger of allowing "my body my choice" to be an open door to abortion, transhumanism, and transgenderism as legal rights.
