In 1902, a Swedish-American pastor named Henning Jacobson refused to get the smallpox vaccine. This launched a chain of events leading to two landmark Supreme Court cases, in which the Court considered the balancing act between individual liberty over our bodies and the collective good.

A version of this story originally ran on The Experiment on March 21, 2021.

Voices in the episode include:

• Rev. Robin Lutjohann — pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Michael Willrich — Brandeis University history professor

• Wendy Parmet — Northeastern University School of Law professor

Learn more:

• 1905: Jacobson v. Massachusetts

• 1927: Buck v. Bell

• 2022: National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration

• 2022: Biden v. Missouri

• "Pox: An American History" by Michael Willrich

• "Constitutional Contagion: COVID, the Courts, and Public Health" by Wendy Parmet

Music by Ob (“Wold”), Parish Council (“Leaving the TV on at Night,” “Museum Weather,” “P Lachaise”), Alecs Pierce (“Harbour Music, Parts I & II”), Laundry (“Lawn Feeling”), water feature (“richard iii (duke of gloucester)”), Keyboard (“Mu”), and naran ratan (“Forevertime Journeys”), provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional music by Dieterich Buxtehude (“Prelude and Fugue in D Major”), Johannes Brahms (“Quintet for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello in B Minor”), and Andrew Eric Halford and Aidan Mark Laverty (“Edge of a Dream”). 

Shadow dockets, term limits, amicus briefs — what puzzles you about the Supreme Court? What stories are you curious about? We want to answer your questions in our next season. Click here to leave us a voice memo.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

Follow us on Instagram, Threads and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and X (Twitter) @moreperfect.