N.J. Lawmakers Plan to Pass One of U.S.’s Strictest Pro-Vaccine Laws

They have won the support of many lawmakers, including the Republican Assembly minority leader, Jon Bramnick of Union County. In floor debate before the bill’s passage, Mr. Bramnick called the bill overly broad.

“To tell a doctor that they cannot use their ability, their expertise, to write an exemption handcuffs doctors,” he said, referring to language in the bill that also tightens the rules for granting medical exemptions.

Among those opposing the bill is the nation’s main ultra-Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, Agudath Israel of America, which is taking a more active role in fighting the measure in New Jersey than it did in New York.

New Jersey is home to the largest Orthodox yeshiva in the country, Beth Medrash Govoha, which is in Lakewood and has about 7,000 students.

While most Orthodox Jews vaccinate their children, many rabbinical authorities “are very concerned about this bill” because it mandates vaccines even in those cases where a rabbi may decide they are unwarranted, said Avi Schnall, the New Jersey director of Agudath Israel of America.

Such a situation, he said, might arise in cases in which a family believes it has two children injured by vaccines, and is debating whether to vaccinate a third child. Most rabbis would rule that such a child should not be vaccinated, he said.

“There is a religious element to vaccines,” he said. “And for the state to eliminate the religious exemption, it sets a precedent, it begins a slippery slope. And it’s not a good place for the state to be telling people, ‘Well, we don’t consider this to be religious, so we are taking it away.’”