Can the Government Mandate Vaccinations? (Anastasia Explains)

- Now that the vaccine is finally here, everyone wants to know. Can the government force you to get a vaccine? (lively music) (pencil writing) Can the government force you to have a vaccine? Some people say the answer is obvious and they point to a 1905 case called Jacobson v. Massachusetts. This was during an outbreak of smallpox in New England. Smallpox, of course, was a highly deadly disease. At the height of smallpox, in the late 1800's, fatality rates reached up to 80%. Even those people that recovered from smallpox got nasty, permanent scarring. And so in response, Massachusetts imposed a mandatory vaccine law. And one man, the Reverend Jacobson, went to court arguing that that violated his constitutional rights. The government could not in fact impose a mandatory vaccine. And ultimately the Supreme Court really emphasizes the value and importance of Liberty. But Liberty allows you to live your life so long as you're not harming other people. And so the government can restrict Liberty when necessary to protect the public. Here, we know the vaccine works. The vaccine at that point had been around for over a 100 years. There were very few reports of any negative effects. And the court said we think this is a pretty reasonable and narrow restriction on that Liberty in light of the circumstances. So now Jacobson is making a resurgence in light of COVID. And not only are people saying that it gives the government the right to force you to have a vaccine, but also that it allows the government to do anything short of giving you a vaccine. And that means haphazardly opening and closing businesses at its whim and mandatory curfews and anything less than sticking a needle into your arm. But that's just not what Jacobson says. If you read it, it's a pretty mellow opinion. First of all, it did not say that the government could hold you down and stick a needle in your arm. It said that the government could under certain circumstances pass a law that requires you to get a vaccine or pay $5. And nowadays that would be the equivalent of about $150. So it doesn't really stand for the proposition that they can pass compulsory vaccine laws. Second of all, the court explicitly said that there was no evidence before it that vaccines were dangerous or didn't work. The court said it was a highly effective vaccine that was known to be safe. And so if there are any issues to that point a law might not survive. Thirdly, we know nothing about what would happen if people had sincerely held religious beliefs that meant that they did not want to take the vaccine for conscience purposes. There's reason to think that a court would say that somebody who objected on religious grounds didn't have to take one. Lastly, it's important to know that Jacobson establishes a reasonableness test. The government always has to be reasonable under any circumstances and what's reasonable changes based on the facts. It doesn't mean that when there's an emergency the government, all of a sudden has more power. and the court has to just throw up its hands and say anything goes. If it's asking for something different it's for the right to be unreasonable. There is no world in which the government should enjoy the right to be unreasonable. All we ask and all Jacobson establishes is that the government provides some evidence that what it's doing is necessary. And I don't think that's a lot to ask in a free society. In the wake of the COVID pandemic locking down whole states kind of haphazardly at the whim of the executive has really been unprecedented in nature. There have been other outbreaks where states and cities locked down maybe a few blocks but never has there really been lockdowns on this scale. Some people would argue that the unprecedented nature of the regulation is required given the unprecedented threat of COVID, but our government should be a government of laws, not unsupported fears. In North Carolina, for example they are allowing every single establishment that sells alcohol to stay open with the exception of 1 class of business which is called a private bar. Private bars is a type of bar. There's about a thousand of them in the state. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of bars bars in restaurants, in distilleries, in breweries brew pubs, wine shops, bottle shops bottle shops are, you know wine and beer stores you can walk into and they have a bar in the back. Those are all open and not private bars that doesn't make sense. And unless there's some evidence there about why it does make sense I think laws like that have to go. We should have a healthy dose of skepticism and that courts should be skeptical. I mean, it's their duty to protect people against legislative abuses. That's why they exist. They exist to vigorously protect our constitutional rights. For more from Pacific Legal Foundation subscribe and hit the bell for notifications. If you want to hear more about Jacobson v. Massachusetts and mandatory vaccinations, check out my podcast Dissed from Pacific Legal Foundation.

Channel: Pacific Legal Foundation

Views: 3,067

Keywords: vaccine, mandatory vaccinations, mandatory vaccine law, constitutional rights, justice john harlan, smallpox vaccine, covid vaccine, Covid-19, covid, coronavirus, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, anti-vaxxer, Jacobson v. Mass, Dissed, supreme court, SCOTUS, smallpox, bill gates, vaccine passport, 2020, Wuhan, lab leak, wet market, FDA, CDC, WHO, herd immunity, Fauci, Trump, Biden, Cuomo

Id: BCt5AhBSzeI

Length: 5min 26sec (326 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021