We need arrests here in New York state. Pro vaccine fuckery won big.

Support for our religious exemption bill decimated

" Last night was a bad night for vaccine rights in New York. Our bill, Senate Bill S6141d, that would take away school districts' authority to deny religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, lost so many supporters in the Senate that there is no longer a clear way forward.

Our sponsor (the author of the bill) State Senator Martin Golden, lost his election in his Brooklyn District. Two other co-sponsors lost their seats, Sen. Elaine Phillips and Sen. Terrence Murphy. Sen. Carl Marcellino, who shepherded the bill successfully through the Senate Education Committee of which he was Chair, lost his election as well. Assemblymember Dean Murray, who co-sponsored the bill in the Assembly, lost his bid for a Senate seat. In the spring four of our Democratic party co-sponsors lost their seats in primary challenges. That left us with only one Democratic co-sponsor, Sen. Luis Sepulveda. In short, our support for the bill was decimated.

The new Democratic majority in the New York Senate have bills to take away religious exemptions altogether just like California (S52-Hoylman/A1810-Dinowitz). They have bills to require HPV vaccines to attend school (S132-Hoylman/A933-Paulin), mandatory flu shots for all pre-schoolers in the state (S6436-Hoylman/A1230-Dinowitz), and a bill to allow children to get shots for sexually-transmitted diseases without parental knowledge or consent (S5611-Krueger/A2649-Paulin). These bills made no progress in the Republican-controlled Senate, but all could begin moving now that the Democrats are in the majority. That is not to say that there are strict partisan divides on these issues, we have supporters and opponents on both sides of the aisle, and our opponent on one issue could be our champion on another. But we are in a new and unknown situation. "