Four California mothers have escalated their challenge against a 2016 law that eliminates religious exemptions for school vaccinations, arguing the law violates their First Amendment rights.
Backed by attorneys with Advocates for Faith & Freedom, Sara Royce, Sarah Clark, Tiffany Brown and Kristi Caraway filed an appeal on Aug. 8 with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after a U.S. District Court dismissed their claims in 2023, which the mothers assert was based on an incorrect legal standard. The plaintiffs contend that SB 277 unfairly targets their religious beliefs while permitting numerous secular exemptions, forcing them to choose between their faith and their children’s access to education.
SB 277, signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown after passing the Democrat-controlled California Legislature, repealed personal belief exemptions, including those based on religious convictions, which had been allowed since 1961. Only medically valid exemptions, such as pre-existing disorders that could pose risks if a person receives one of the immunizations for Hepatitis B, polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP), or other common childhood vaccines, are allowed under the law.
The mothers, who filed their initial lawsuit in November 2023, argue that their religious objections — rooted in concerns about vaccines developed using aborted fetal cells — prevent them from complying, effectively barring their children from attending schools.
According to the appellants’ brief, SB 277’s numerous secular exemptions allow unvaccinated students to enter public or private school based on the status of their family or economic life, such as those who are in foster care or homeless, their age, or whether the student receives special education services.
Attorneys say the mothers’ religious objections are deeply personal. Royce, a mother of three, believes vaccinating her children would make her “complicit in abortion” due to the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine development. Brown, also a mother of three, and Caraway, who’s raising 10 children, share similar concerns, with Brown reporting vaccine-related injuries in her children and one of Caraway’s children receiving a medical exemption after such an injury.
Clark, who homeschools her children through a charter program, views vaccines as “a foreign substance” that violates biblical principles. “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 complaint states.
Arguing that the district court erred by applying rational basis review instead of strict scrutiny, the brief states the court “misapplied” a case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a 2021 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court held the city of Philadelphia violated First Amendment rights of a Catholic foster care agency by refusing to renew the agency’s contract unless it agreed to certify married same-sex couples as foster parents.
The appellants further alleged legislative hostility toward religious objectors, citing California state Sen. Richard Pan, who 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, said the brief underscores why it’s important to hold public officials accountable. “Before the state is allowed to ban schoolchildren from all public and private schools in California, it must demonstrate that doing so is necessary, “ she said. “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.”
