The Nebraska Supreme Court has twice upheld the state’s right to require all newborns to be screened for metabolic disorders, first in Douglas County v. Anaya, 269 Neb. 552, 694 N.W.2d 601 (2005) and second in In re: Interest of Anaya, 276 Neb. 825 (2008). They are the first state court rulings upholding the state’s right to require a health screening over the religious objections of parents.

The Anayas were non-denominational Christians who believed that blood is sacred and therefore withdrawing even the one or two drops needed for metabolic screening was immoral and could shorten one’s life on earth.

In Spiering v. Heineman, 448 F.Supp.2d 1129 (D. Neb. 2006), the U.S. District Court for Nebraska upheld Nebraska’s metabolic screening law against a challenge by followers of the Church of Sci­en­tology. It is the first federal court ruling that a state has the right to require a screening over the religious objections of parents.

The Spierings follow the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard in Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health. Hubbard claims that his “silent birth method” is essential to a person’s physical and spiritual wellbeing. The method requires that infants not be subjected to stress, pain, loud sounds, or voices during the first week of life. Other sensory experiences should also be limited as much as possible. For example, lights must be dimmed in the delivery room.

Scientologists believe that when a person experiences pain or is influenced by anesthe­tics or drugs the conscious mind temporarily shuts down. The reptilian or reactive part of the brain, however, records all sensory experience. Later when the person encounters the same sensory data or words, his reactive mind is triggered by the earlier memories. This may cause flight or fight reactions and reliving the pain of earlier traumas.

Because the infant goes through so much pain in the birth process, any further discomfort, talking, and strong sensory data during the first week of life will be recorded in the infant’s primitive, reactive, non-reasoning part of the brain, Scientologists claim, and, throughout the rest of his life, the individual will have strong fear and tension when he encounters those words or other triggers again.

Nebraska requires that the metabolic screening be done when the infant is between 24 and 48 hours old so that there is time to treat fast-acting, deadly disorders such as galactosemia. The Spierings filed a federal suit for the right to delay the screening for a week or two in accord with their religious beliefs.

Both the Spierings and the Anayas argued that the state had to show a compelling interest and meet a least-restrictive-means test before interfering with parents’ religious rights. The courts, however, held that the state needs to have only a “rational basis” for a law that is neutral and generally applicable and Nebraska’s metabolic screening law was therefore constitutional.

Both sets of parents also raised “hybrid rights claims” that the screening law violated two fundamental constitutional rights, free exercise of religion and parents’ rights to care and custody, and therefore triggered the strict scrutiny standard of review. Both courts rejected the theory that implicating two constitutional rights makes a law more suspect.

CHILD filed an amicus brief in Douglas County v. Anaya in support of the metabolic screening law. An electronic copy is available upon request.