The Original Anti-Vaxxer

Choose to lean into it. Every Mazda is engineered to give you effortless control. I wake up. Listener supported. WNYC Studios. Hi, Julia. My name is Jascha. I'm from Amsterdam in The Netherlands. I wondered if the Supreme Court has ever ruled on the balance between personal liberty on the one hand and public health on the other. Can the government limit the freedom of individuals in order to protect the health of everybody else. I'm Julia Longoria. This is More Perfect. It feels like every day, I get a reminder of how much the COVID pandemic has completely changed our world. About seven million people have died of COVID. Vaccination is now a topic on the campaign trail. So I've been thinking a lot about this question a listener posed to us, about the balance between our individual freedoms and our health. And it's a difficult question and one that really interests me personally, because I strongly believe in both. I believe in personal freedom, liberty, and the right to make your own choices in life. That's, like, a core value to me, but so is health and safety of everybody around me. I would really like to know whether the Supreme Court has ever ruled on this and whether they have been able to balance or find a balance between these two rights. And if so, how and where? In the last few years, the Supreme Court has had to balance these two interests, most often ruling against public health. They've rejected vaccine and mask mandates and social distancing requirements. But that hasn't always been the case. We looked further back in history to one of the first times the Court ever weighed these two interests, in a case that became a basis for our country's public health system. This week, the story of that case. Hello. This is Robin. Hi. Is this the Swedish Lutheran Church in Cambridge? We haven't been that in a very long time, but, yes. This is, I'm the pastor of Faith Lutheran Church. How can I help you? Oh, okay. Thank you. I'm working on a story about pastor Henning Jacobson. Yep. I'm sure this is about vaccination. Yes. But Producer Gabrielle Berbey cold called a church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This was actually a couple of years ago when Gabrielle and I were working on another WNYC studio show called The Experiment, a coproduction with The Atlantic magazine. Gabrielle was searching for the very first vaccine case to come before the Supreme Court. It all began in this church over a hundred years ago. Thank you for talking to me. This is, like, such a random call. Sure. No. No. No. I love this kind of stuff. Where the current pastor picked up the phone. Are you in the church now? Yeah. Yeah. This is our organist practicing. I just put on my mask. I have a very talented organist. Here, listen. Oh, I can hear that. Yeah. The original pastor of …