Last month, following protests from anti-vaxxers, New Jersey lawmakers delayed a vote on a bill that would have ended all religious exemptions to vaccinations. It would have applied to all students at any school or college, including private institutions.

The bill’s sponsors amended the bill so that it applied to only public schools — but that upset science advocates who know the importance of vaccines for everyone. By trying to please everyone, the sponsors pleased no one.

And now that bill is dead. The legislature was one vote shy of what it needed, so lawmakers chose to scrap the plan, hoping to resurrect it in the future, instead of letting this one come up for a vote.

“We’re ready to go to war over this,” state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, told reporters after Monday. “We will pass this bill. This is about public health. It’s about protecting people.”

Let’s hope he’s right. This isn’t the sort of bill where a compromise makes any sense. Unless you have a medical excuse for not getting your shots, you should have to get your shots.

It’s amazing that we live in an era with more information available in our back pockets than any other period in history, and yet, society’s intelligence appears to constantly be on the decline. We could write this off as nature taking care of itself by having the ignorant succumb to measles, but plenty of supposedly smart people perpetuate the same lies.

Because of their irresponsible actions, plenty of innocent people will be in harm’s way.

(Screenshot via YouTube)

