Jacobson's Ladder

Coming over the airwaves
The man says I'm overdue
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--Huey Lewis & the News

Those in favor of vaccination mandates believe that a convincing legal precedent exists for vaccination by command. Jacobson v. Massachusetts was a 1905 Supreme Court case that upheld a state law requiring inoculation for smallpox.

However, the central issue in the Jacobson case was whether a state legislature could enact compulsory public health laws. Today's vaccination mandates have not been the products of legislation. Rather, they have been issued by edict and executive order. Under the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution, only laws enacted by state legislature, not by gubernatorial commands, are lawful. 

Jacobson was also decided before a series of important rulings shaped jurisprudence regarding personal privacy and bodily integrity. 

Privacy doctrine was initially motivated by a dissent. In Olmstead v. United States (1928), the Supreme Court upheld the wiretapping of phone calls without a search warrant since, in the court's view, there was no expectation of privacy on phone calls (recall that back then there were party lines and manually operated switchboards). Justice Louis Brandeis disagreed, arguing that the framers of the Constitution "sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be left alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

Brandeis' dissent resonated with a judicial minority until Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), when the Supreme Court recognized personal privacy as a fundamental liberty. Building on Brandeis' rationale, the court invalidated a state law that prohibited the use of contraceptives by married couples, ruling that the decision to use contraceptives was a private matter outside of government reach.

Eight years later, Roe v. Wade drove a stake though Jacobson's heart by upholding the privacy rights of people to decide which medical procedures to undergo (although Roe catastrophically failed to recognize similar rights of unborn children in the womb). 

State courts began to embrace parallel lines of judicial thought. In the case of In re Quinlan (1976), the Supreme Court of New Jersey upheld the right of the parents of Kathleen Ann Quinlan, her legal guardians, to deny their comatose daughter artificial life-sustaining procedures. Following Quinlan, all states have recognized the fundamental right of sick people, directly or through their guardians, to reject medication and medical procedures.

Today, both federal and state courts acknowledge that individuals can decide for themselves what medications to take or what medical procedures are right for them. Decision-makers have a natural, moral, and constitutional right over their bodies. Moreover, these decisions are made in privacy and are none of the government's business.

Those citing Jacobson as a legal basis for mandating vaccines are ignorant of the 20th century jurisprudence that contradicts them.

Snaps to Judge Nap for the history lesson.