We are excited and encouraged to report that last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down an extraordinary win for religious liberty and parental rights in a critical case called Care and Protection of Eve. The case involved a toddler in the temporary custody of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) whose Rastafarian parents had deeply held religious beliefs that prohibited them from receiving vaccines or administering them to their children. Ignoring these beliefs, DCF moved to vaccinate the child anyway. When the parents asked the trial court to intervene, the court refused, stating that vaccination was in the child’s “best interests,” which trumped their religious beliefs.

The attorneys for the parents reached out to MFI to ask if we would be willing to file a “friend of the court” brief in support of the parents’ rights to direct the religious upbringing of their daughter. We enthusiastically agreed and filed a 30-page brief in January that argued that the trial court got it wrong and that DCF violated the parents’ fundamental rights under both the U.S. and Massachusetts Constitutions. While the attorneys for the parents argued that the trial court failed to apply a proper “balancing test” to the parents’ request not to vaccinate, our brief went even further, pointing out that any infringement on parents’ religious rights should be subject to “strict scrutiny,” the highest level of constitutional review.

When the SJC decision was released, we were very pleased to see that the Court accepted every major point of our argument! It held that: 1) the parents retained their full rights to direct the religious upbringing of their child even while she was in DCF’s temporary custody, 2) strict scrutiny applied to any infringement on those rights, and 3) DCF’s actions in this case did not pass strict scrutiny. The court pointed out that the child’s own siblings, who were also in DCF custody, had not been required to receive any vaccines. And it emphasized that Massachusetts law allows parents to opt their children out of school vaccines for religious reasons. Given these facts, it made no sense for DCF to say that this particular child had to be vaccinated. You can read the decision here.

Here are 5 key takeaways from this monumental decision:

1. The State can no longer vaccinate children against the religious objections of their parents when the children are in temporary state custody. Note that the Court relied heavily on MA’s vaccine religious exemption law, which some legislators are currently trying to repeal – visit our Take Action page to learn how you can make sure they don’t succeed!
2. This holding will extend to other forms of medical and mental health care – in particular, DCF should not be able to facilitate a child’s gender transition against their parents’ religious objections unless it can pass the highest level of constitutional review.
3. The SJC reaffirmed that the Massachusetts Constitution provides even more protection for religious liberty than the First Amendment. Strict scrutiny applies to every infringement on religious freedom.
4. The SJC made clear that unless a parent is found unfit by a court or has their parental rights terminated, they keep their full rights to direct their children’s religious upbringing. As the Court stated, “[t]he fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child does not evaporate simply because they have not been model parents or have lost temporary custody of their child to the State.”
5. The SJC stated that courts should be “reluctant” to question the sincerity of a parents’ religious beliefs, or whether the beliefs are really “religious.”

In a stunning affirmation of religious freedom and parental rights, the Court stated, “[t]here is no question that the rights to freely practice one’s religion and to raise children according to the dictates of one’s own conscience are among the most sacred private interests, long recognized as such by this court and the United States Supreme Court.”

We are so grateful for your support that enables us to engage with cases like this. The resources you provide to MFI allowed us to file a brief that may have ultimately swayed the court to issue this groundbreaking decision, which will protect fundamental rights for years to come. We hope you are encouraged as we are and that you will continue to contribute to our work on cases like this.

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