I’m not commenting on the constitutionality of this decision, nor on the body autonomy issues. I’m merely reporting what I found out.
The story
In 1894 Judge Bartlett of the New York Supreme Court in the case of Walters decided that to compel vaccination by intimidation or force was criminal assault. Source: "Crime against the school childe". (Remember, this was the NY supreme court, which was later overridden by the US supreme court.) Chas M Higgins. 1915. https://archive.org/details/crimeagainstscho00higg_0_201804
But this was later reversed by the US supreme court. In 1905 the US Supreme Court declares, in the case of Jacobson, that forcing a person to get vaccinated is constitutional. This is mentioned here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449224/
A Massachusetts statute granted city boards of health the authority to require vaccination “when necessary for public health or safety.”17 In 1902, when smallpox surged in Cambridge, the city’s board of health issued an order pursuant to this authority that required all adults to be vaccinated to halt the disease. The statutory penalty for refusing vaccination was a monetary fine of $5 (about $100 today). There was no provision for actually forcing vaccination on any person.
From https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/ we have this:
"A state may enact a compulsory vaccination law, since the legislature has the discretion to decide whether vaccination is the best way to prevent smallpox and protect public health. The legislature may exempt children from the law without violating the equal protection rights of adults if the law applies equally among adults".
and this:
Henning Jacobson refused vaccination, claiming that he and his son had had bad reactions to earlier vaccinations. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found it unnecessary to worry about any possible harm from vaccination, because no one could actually be forced to be vaccinated: “If a person should deem it important that vaccination should not be performed in his case, and the authorities should think otherwise, it is not in their power to vaccinate him by force, and the worst that could happen to him under the statute would be the payment of $5.”
More links
A Search for more information: https://search.brave.com/search?q=%2B1904+US+supreme+court+opinion+Jacobson&source=web
Google scholar search: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C23&q=US+Supreme+Court+Jacobson+1905&btnG=
Disclaimer
I’m not a lawyer, I’m just trying to sift through some information I have. If you found a site that explains this case better then please do comment below. Even if you found a site that disagrees with this post, and it has an explanation, please put it in the comments. I want to look at all sides of the story.