Gov. Brad Little signed the legislation after vetoing a similar bil
Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed legislation that bans businesses and schools from requiring customers, employees, and students to receive a vaccine or another medical procedure.
Little on April 4 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 says 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 that “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 state House of Representatives floor before the chamber passed the act, he said that the updated legislation, despite amendments, “remains deeply flawed” in part because the definition of medical intervention was “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 “removes parents’ freedom to ensure their children stay healthy at school because it jeopardizes 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.
