Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free.
New York children will not be required to take the COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend school in the fall. The New York State 2022 legislative session came to an end June 2 without passing this mandate or any new laws pertaining to vaccination.
Lawmakers proposed more than a dozen COVID-19-related bills during the 2022 session. They included proposals to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine and the flu vaccine, create a vaccine database and allow minors to consent to medical procedures without parental consent.
2022 marks the third year in a row that activists in New York have prevented new vaccine mandates from being codified into state law.
A massive grassroots campaign showed New York lawmakers how unpopular vaccine mandates are.
After Governor Kathy Hochul in December 2021 claimed a vaccine mandate for kids was inevitable in 2022, 4,000 activists rallied in front of the Albany capitol building on Jan. 5, the first day of the legislative session.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and the CHD New York chapter co-sponsored the event. CHD chartered nearly a dozen buses to bring people to the rally from across the state.
Just 18 days later, CHD co-sponsored the “Defeat the Mandates” rally in Washington, D.C. Once again CHD chartered buses to bring people from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio to the rally.
Within weeks of the event, vaccine passport mandates in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C. and New York City were all repealed.
From January through May, CHD and the CHD New York chapter helped coordinate email and phone action alerts, encouraging tens of thousands of New Yorkers to express their opinion of proposed vaccine legislation to their lawmakers.
On May 16, CHD supporters went back to Albany to rally for medical freedom in another event sponsored by CHD and the CHD New York chapter. CHD made sure no one was turned away from the event due to lack of funds.
CHD also has been battling in court against vaccine mandates in New York City that led to the firing of more than 1,400 city employees, uncounted early retirements and thousands of resignations.
Thousands of people chose to leave the state of New York entirely.
CHD is fighting for New York City workers fired for declining COVID-19 vaccination in two federal court cases: Kane v. de Blasio and New Yorkers for Religious Liberty v. NYC. The cases have been in court for more than eight months, winning many minor yet important victories.
While the cases have yet to restore jobs to those who lost them due to vaccine mandates, the arguments the cases are built on are strong.
CHD attorney Sujata Gibson said, “The arguments underlying both our cases are only getting stronger with time and eventually the courts will have to rule on them.”
Both cases still have the potential to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if an unfavorable ruling in one of the lower courts is eventually applied. This consistent pressure in the courts has been an integral part of CHD strategy.
