Maine Senate rejects ending religious exemptions for vaccinations
Source: Reuters
Politics
May 2, 2019 / 4:57 PM / Updated 5 minutes ago
(Reuters) - An effort to end all non-medical exemptions for childhood vaccinations in Maine was in limbo on Thursday after the state Senate voted to amend it to allow parents to keep opting out on religious grounds.
The bill had passed the Democratic-controlled state House of Representatives last month, making Maine one of at least seven states considering ending non-medical exemptions amid the worst outbreak of measles in the United States in 25 years.
In a close vote, 18 lawmakers in the Democratic-led state Senate supported an amendment to the House bill to retain the religious exemption that exists in state law, while 17 voted against. The senators approved ending exemptions for children whose parents oppose vaccination for philosophical reasons.
Several senators who had trained and worked as doctors argued at length ahead of the vote to allow an exemption only if a healthcare provider deemed it medically necessary. Others noted no major U.S. religion opposes vaccinations.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-measles-maine/maine-senate-rejects-ending-religious-exemptions-for-vaccinations-idUSKCN1S826E?il=0
-snip- and from a libertarian that thinks its just fine to be a walking, talking contagion that will caused people to die if your not vaccinated.............and you can infect other people..................and this drives up health care costs in the long term........................what an ass and his cronies........and only thinking about himself and government over reach..............
Quote:
Senate Republicans, including Scott Cyrway, opposed the bill as government overreach into the private sphere.
Were forcing someone to do something when we dont really have to, Cyrway said.
The Mouth
(3,164 posts)against getting every vaccine recommended, is a nutter and should be institutionalized. It's like slavery or animal torture- there's no room for rationalization or counter-argument, bets if the nutters are just kept FAR away from children or voting booths and laughed at if not locked up,
aka-chmeee
(1,132 posts)Kind of like the Universal Innocent/Exempt by Reason of Insanity Defense
SWBTATTReg
(22,171 posts)health insurance and copays, when they find out that their clients didn't take a particular vaccine when it was available. I'm surprised that this hasn't happened already.
Aristus
(66,467 posts)"Get your kids vaccinated or watch your insurance premiums get jacked sky-high. We're not going to pay to treat preventable diseases."
This is one instance in which I would come down on the side of the insurance companies...
SWBTATTReg
(22,171 posts)PaulRevere08
(449 posts)They have no right to put others at risk from infection because they or their parents are damn idiots.
Grins
(7,234 posts)Yeah. it's all "Freedumb!" 'n shit until someone's kid dies, or a birth mother delivers a child with Heart problems, eye problems, deafness, Diabetes, etc. What can that wind up costing the Great State of Maine, Senator? Senator...?
Jesus' Holy Taint! If this "government overreach into the private sphere" is not stopped, the next thing you know, armed jack-booted thugs in state uniforms will be demanding people in cars use seat belts "when we dont really have to. Oh, wait....
Meanwhile, sixty miles down the road from Maine's capital the week before....
The best protection against measles is vaccination. - The state of Maine's Chief Epidemiologist, Dr. Siiri Bennett, 30 April 2019, just days after the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention warned the public that a Massachusetts resident who had been diagnosed with measles visited two businesses in Portland.
There seems to be a disconnect....