An 18-year-old Kentucky Catholic high school student is losing his current lawsuit against the Northern Kentucky Health Department. Jerome Kunkel, who is unvaccinated, sued the health department to allow him back into Our Lady of Assumption Academy in Walton and extracurricular activities after an outbreak of chickenpox hit the school. According to Ars Technica, a judge ruled on Tuesday that Kunkel could not attend Assumption because the health department was well within its lawful rights to try to stem the outbreak that had spread to almost 13 percent of the school’s population between the first weeks of February and the first weeks of March.
Jerome’s father, Bill Kunkel, told the Washington Post, “This is tyranny against our religion, our faith, our country.” Kunkel’s religious basis for his argument is that the cells from which the vaccine was derived over 50 years ago came from a 14-week-old fetus. According to him, this makes the vaccine itself immoral, and against his Catholic beliefs.
As Ars Technica correctly points out, the Catholic church has issued a clear ruling on how Catholics should ethically approach chickenpox vaccinations. The ruling finds that one should see if an alternative vaccination exists—one not created via cells from an aborted fetus— and that “the need to contest so that others may be prepared must be reaffirmed, as should be the lawfulness of using the former in the meantime insomuch as is necessary in order to avoid a serious risk not only for one's own children but also, and perhaps more specifically, for the health conditions of the population as a whole - especially for pregnant women.”
When the Washington Post asked Bill Kunkel if he knew what the Catholic Church said about vaccinations such as the one against chickenpox, he said, “That doesn’t mean nothing to me. I follow the laws of the Church, and I know what’s right and wrong.” This is an interesting thing to say, because it’s sounding like Bill Kunkel is less a Catholic and more a member of the Church of Things Bill Kunkel Believes on his Own. That’s fine, I guess, but you’ll need to change your religious affiliation, get your new religion set up, and then argue about your “freedom of religion.”
This is the second such lawsuit in as many months. A group of New York families sued Rockland County Health Department officials over much the same—and were denied by a judge. Public health over private delusions. The reason that vaccinations were pursued and created against diseases like chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella is how infectious they are and how quickly they can permeate communities.