Willrich: In 1905 the Court ruled on the constitutionality of compulsory vaccination measures in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts. In upholding the legitimacy of compulsory vaccination, the Supreme Court compared the right to enact public health measures during an epidemic to the right of a government, any government, to defend its people from a military invasion. And they compared the right to compel individuals to be vaccinated, whether they wanted to or not, to the power to conscript the people in order to raise an army. These are very strong statements of public health authority.
However, the Court emphasized that these measures must not be arbitrary and unreasonable, that they must address legitimate public health concerns, and that in some extreme cases public health regulations might be "so arbitrary and oppressive" as to justify judicial review. That is an important standard, and Jacobson remains the major case today in public health law, more than a century later.
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How on Earth could you liken compulsory vaccination to military conscription? Last I checked conscription has only ever been used with fighting aged males in this country, and even then it didn't include all of them. Are we adding woman and children now?
I understand the need for vaccination and would happily volunteer, but I don't know what I would fear more: the government having such power or the virus itself?
