Will West Virginia Allow Childhood ‘Religious Exemptions’ to Avoid State Vaccine Mandates?

Last week, a letter addressed to ‘West Virginia Health Departments Participating in the Vaccines for Children Program,’ written by Paula M. Stannard, Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the HHS, ordered schools throughout West Virginia to begin allowing parents to use a religious exemption for their children to avoid the state’s vaccine mandate.

Not everyone in and outside of West Virginia was pleased. Far from it.

On Monday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke his agency's silence on the matter, expressing full support for religious freedom. Posting on X, Kennedy wrote, "I stand with Governor Patrick Morrisey. His executive order upholds West Virginians’ religious freedom and parental rights while keeping the state in full compliance with federal law. I urge state legislators to support the Governor’s leadership and protect these fundamental rights. At HHS, we will enforce conscience protections and defend every family’s right to make informed health decisions."

If West Virginia complies with the letter and the decision is upheld in courts, it could set a precedent for all states that do not offer families the religious exemption option.

“West Virginia is a participant in the VCP [Verifiable Parental Consent] and receives $1.37 billion from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services each year as the federal Medicaid contribution,” the letter states. “Therefore, West Virginia is obligated to ensure that its VCP providers comply with applicable state laws like Virginia’s Equal Protection for Religion Act (EPRA), which requires recognition of religious exemptions from West Virginia’s Compulsory Vaccination Law.”

This section is critical for establishing a precedent that could apply to other states. In effect, states that receive certain federal public health funds will likely have to offer religious exemptions to vaccines.

Stannard’s letter further states that according to a ruling from Judge Froble of the Circuit Court of Raleigh County, religious exemptions to vaccination are considered legally mandatory in accordance with EPRA. The letter therefore concludes, “Accordingly, EPRA is a State law that ‘relat[es] to’ religious exemptions from West Virginia’s compulsory immunization law.”

The West Virginia Board of Education (WVBE) acknowledged Stannard’s letter but, as of 11 a.m Eastern on August 25, the letter hasn’t been confirmed in public by an HHS official.

“The HHS OCR lawyers have crafted a letter to point out that withholding a religious exemption transgresses, in their opinion, multiple state and federal laws,” Maine physician, Dr. Meryl Nass, told The MAHA Report. “Furthermore, the laws implementing federal benefit programs require that applicable laws be obeyed, and therefore, HHS could withdraw funding for Medicaid and potentially the Vaccines for Children program if they are not obeyed.”

Nass added, “Efforts around vaccine mandates are always challenged in the courts, and so I believe that OCR chose to make this stand in a state in which the governor, half the legislature and the laws favor the OCR interpretation. This is highly likely to withstand any legal challenges. Mississippi (which for many years was the only state besides WV to withhold religious exemptions) had its interpretation overturned in the courts two years ago. However, in the past ten years religious exemptions have been removed in Maine, Connecticut, New York and California.”

West Virginia’s Governor Morrisey, a strong supporter of HHS Secretary Kennedy and the MAHA movement, in May issued a statement aligning his administration with the rights of families to use religious exemptions. At the time, Morrisey said he was working with the state’s school superintendent, county boards, and the Bureau of Public Health, “to ensure that religious rights of students are protected.” He added, “Students will not be denied access to public education because of their religious objections to compulsory vaccination.”

But WVBE pushed back against the HHS letter, saying, “This letter is not directed to the WVBE or West Virginia school districts and has no impact on the WVBE’s position that the current compulsory school immunization law does not contain a religious exemption. The WVBE will stay the course in its pursuit of legal relief from the West Virginia Supreme Court regarding compulsory immunizations and religious exemptions.”

WVBE’s statement is at odds with Governor Morrisey’s executive order from earlier this year, which seeks to protect freedom of religion, inclusive of religious objections to vaccination.

For his part, Kennedy has taken a clear stand on the side of parental choice, bodily autonomy and medical freedom.

Still, it remains to be seen which side of the West Virginia divide will win the day – and whether a victory there will trigger other state actions across the nation.