Karman Willmer, left, and Shelby Messenger protest in Sacramento on June 9.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP
Personal and religious exemptions for vaccinations in California may be ending.
On Thursday, California's state Assembly approved a bill that would eliminate current vaccination exemptions for school children based on personal and religious reasons. If it becomes law, parents would have to cite a medical reason.
California's Senate, which approved the bill last month, on Monday signed off on some amendments, sending the legislation to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Opponents of a measure requiring nearly all California school children to be vaccinated gathered in Sacramento on June 25.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP
Brown hasn't said if he plans to sign the bill, but a spokesman told the Associated Press last week that the governor believes vaccinations "are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered."
If the bill does become law, California will have one of the strictest vaccination regulations for school kids in the U.S.
The bill was proposed in February, after a series of outbreaks of diseases vaccines are designed to prevent. The most high profile of those outbreaks began in January, when multiple people were exposed to measles at Disneyland.
However, despite bipartisan support in the state Legislature, the bill has been hotly contested among parents. Those who wanted the option of not vaccinating their children have been lobbying lawmakers to kill the proposed legislation and have staged multiple rallies — including one Thursday.
According to the AP, Renate Krogdahl, a mother of three, told demonstrators that parents like her "are being bullied into having their children vaccinated, or not sending their kids to school."
On the other side of the debate is Carl Krawitt, whose son Rhett has been fighting leukemia for 4 1/2 years and so couldn't be vaccinated. Krawitt told BuzzFeed News Thursday that when the measles outbreak began spreading in California, he asked his school district in Marin County to prohibiting unvaccinated children from attending so that Rhett's sister wouldn't get sick.
"It she were to get sick and bring one of these diseases home, it could impact our son’s chemotherapy and be lethal," Krawitt said. "People don’t truly understand the risk if these diseases actually have an outbreak."
Over last few months, the family's story has received extensive media coverage, and the family publicly supported the proposed legislation. On Wednesday, they personally delivered a petition with thousands of signatures in support of the bill to the governor's office.
Carl compared the bill to past legislation requiring seat belts or prohibiting smoking in public places.
"There are personal freedoms," he added, "and there are limitations where those personal freedoms impact others."
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
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