A woman who claimed she saw “God in everything” and feared immunizing her daughter because it would inject “disease” into her “perfect” and “divine” human form failed to establish religious grounds sufficient for an exemption from New York state’s mandatory vaccination rules, a federal judge has ruled.
Martina Caviezel, a self-proclaimed pantheist, sought a preliminary injunction allowing her to enroll her 4-year-old daughter in a Great Neck, N.Y., pre-kindergarten without getting the shots the state says the child needs. Caviezel relied on Public Health Law §2164(9), which exempts children from the requirement whose parents or guardians “hold genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary” to vaccination.
