A Pennsylvania state senator wants to roll back religious exemptions that some parents claim to avoid childhood vaccine mandates, saying these loopholes are endangering kids and putting public health at risk.
The suggestion comes as officials try to contain an outbreak of measles that has sickened hundreds of unvaccinated residents across the commonwealth. About a third of the 624 measles cases this year have involved people who are younger than 18, according to the state’s health department.
Like most states, Pennsylvania generally requires children to have certain immunizations before they enroll in school but offers carveouts for families whose religious beliefs or personal convictions conflict with those rules.
But state Sen. Amanda Cappelletti contends that these exemptions are dangerous given the spread of vaccine conspiracy theories and distrust in the health experts who promote immunization.
She also points to a section of the commonwealth’s code that says officials shouldn’t enforce child abuse laws against parents who fail to provide “needed medical or surgical care” to their child, so long as the decision is based on the family’s sincere religious beliefs. That exemption should also be eliminated from the law, the Montgomery County Democrat argues.
“When combined with the ongoing national campaign of disinformation and chaos surrounding vaccinations and sound public health measures, these two provisions risk depriving children of lifesaving care or preventive options, determined not by their own choices but by those made for them,” she wrote in a Sept. 8 memo describing a forthcoming bill.
Several other states — including California, Maine and Connecticut — don’t offer non-medical exceptions to their vaccine requirements, her memo notes.
Is use of religious exemptions on the rise in Pa.?
The number of Pennsylvania families forgoing vaccination has increased in recent years, according to state health data.
In the 2020-2021 school year, 2.4% of kindergartners lacked required vaccinations because their parents claimed a religious or philosophical exemption. That figure jumped to 5.4% five years later.
Simultaneously, vaccination rates have fallen across the state, in some cases below the threshold for providing community immunity to disease.
While experts say immunization levels of 95% are necessary to curb the spread of measles in a population, only about 93% of kindergartners were fully vaccinated against the disease during the 2025-2026 school year, according to the state.
The rates are far lower in certain parts of the commonwealth, slipping below 80% in one Pennsylvania county.
