As the number of unvaccinated children rises because of non-medical exemptions, some question the sincerity of parents who cite religion as their reason to forgo immunizations.
New research out of the University of Illinois Chicago looks at religious exemptions for several hot-button issues, including same-sex marriage and abortion, to see if political ideology shapes whether someone believes a religious exception is justifiable.
The study, published this week in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that both liberals and conservatives are more likely to perceive someone else’s beliefs as sincere, and therefore eligible for a religious exemption, if that belief is ideologically aligned with their own values. But also, in instances of ideological alignment, people are more likely to support a religious exemption, regardless of whether they believe in the sincerity of the person making the request.
“Liberals and conservatives are pretty similar in their patterns,” senior author Michael Pasek, PhD, told CIDRAP News. “Liberals don’t want to grant the exemption to conservative religious requests. Conservatives don’t want to grant the exemption to liberal religious requests.”
In other words, people don’t assess religious exemptions neutrally but instead tend to prioritize ideology, which Pasek said, “is scary” because it shows that people will bend facts to fit their worldview.
No one religion owns the vaccine debate
The study didn’t specifically look at vaccines, but Pasek suspects the same principle likely applies to immunizations, since one of the paper’s general findings is that political ideology shapes how a person considers a range of topics. He points to a robust body of social psychology research that shows decision-making is not neutral, but informed by ideology, goals, and identity.
Currently, opposition to vaccines and policies that promote vaccines is stronger among conservatives than liberals. Some people who oppose vaccines on religious grounds cite the fact that some immunizations are either made with or were developed using fetal cell lines from abortions that are at least several decades old. (These lines are reproduced in laboratories, meaning that new cells from additional abortions are unnecessary.)
If the only discourse in society is that opposition to vaccines is associated with religion, Pasek warned that it’s logical for people who value religion to assume that they should be anti-vaccine.
But no one type of ideology “owns” religion. Religion is nuanced and some religious values are compatible with pro-vaccine policies.
For example, in a recent letter to Florida’s attorney general, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops explained it does not accept religious vaccine exemptions for students attending Catholic schools in the state because of the importance of considering the needs of others.
The conference also cited the Catholic teaching that life and physical health “are precious gifts entrusted to us by God,” and vaccines are a way to protect those gifts.
As religious exemption requests increase across the country, we’re likely to see these patterns continue.
Therefore, Pasek argued, it’s important to understand how perceptions can encourage tensions between religion and public health when the two don’t have to be at odds.
At the same time, when someone’s request for a religious exemption is genuine, Pasek said, “We have to figure out how to balance the rights that should be protected of people who have faith-based objections with public health.”