Vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. didn’t begin with the uproar over the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19. Debates over vaccine safety and mandatory vaccination have been proxies for existential concerns about justice and morality for decades, and vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. should be understood as religious expression—not as the product of scientific misinformation.
Through a series of historical case studies, which range from the “mother warriors,” who claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism during the 1990s, to opposition to masking and vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book frames vaccination controversies as contests over religious freedom and moral authority. These debates concerned bodily, spiritual, and sexual purity; the morality of state-mandated medical risk; the importance of children; and the authority of parents and doctors.
Diverse groups of Americans have utilized religious ideals and practices to question or resist vaccination. This book offers a novel and even-handed way to understand Americans’ changing and increasingly divided attitudes toward biomedical knowledge and technology through an accessible set of tools for how to “think with religion” when it comes to contemporary contests over medical authority.
