Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed legislation that bans businesses and schools from requiring customers, employees, and students to receive vaccines or other medical procedures.
On April 4, Little signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, or Senate Bill 1210.
The act states, in part, that a business “shall not refuse to provide any service, product, admission to a venue, or transportation to a person because that person has or has not received or used a medical intervention.”
It states that a school “shall not mandate a medical intervention for any person to attend, enter campus or buildings, or be employed.” It also states that, unless required by federal law, state, county, and local governments cannot require a person to receive a medical intervention.
A medical intervention is defined in the legislation as “a medical procedure, treatment, device, drug, injection, medication, or medical action taken to diagnose, prevent, or cure a disease or alter the health or biological function of a person.”
State Rep. Rob Beiswenger, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, wrote on social media platform X after the signing, “Idaho has the best health freedom laws in the country!”
State Rep. Todd Achilles, a Democrat, was one of the bill’s opponents. Speaking on the floor of the Idaho House of Representatives before the chamber passed the act, he said that the updated legislation, despite amendments, “remains deeply flawed,” partly because its definition of medical intervention is “overly broad.”
“Effectively, what this bill does is it ties the hands of Idaho businesses, who have the duty to protect their customers and their employees,” he said. “We’re telling them what they can and can’t do.”
Little, a Republican, had vetoed Senate Bill 1023, which contained similar language. He said that Senate Bill 1023 would remove “parents’ freedom to ensure their children stay healthy at school because it [would jeopardize] the ability of schools to send home sick students with highly contagious conditions.”
Senate Bill 1210, the bill that was signed into law, expanded on the section relating to schools by giving them the ability to prevent sick children from going to class.
“It took some twists and turns, but the Medical Freedom Act passed the Legislature just before adjournment, and this time, the governor has signed it,” the Idaho Republican Party said on Facebook.
Leslie Manookian, president and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund, helped lawmakers craft the legislation. She welcomed the signing of the bill.
“Medical freedom is a basic and fundamental human right, and the Idaho Medical Freedom Act sets a powerful precedent not only for our state but for the entire country,” she said in a statement.
