Should parents, students and employees be allowed to claim religious exemptions from vaccine mandates? That’s the question an increasing number of state lawmakers are being asked to decide as they consider a new wave of proposed bills.
Arizona is one of eight states that have introduced bills during the 2025 legislative session to establish or expand exemptions to school vaccine mandates, according to Dawn Richardson, advocacy director for the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).
“Vaccine mandates for school and childcare attendance and their corresponding vaccine exemptions have been in state law for decades,” Richardson said. But this year, “more states have bills to expand these exemptions than to restrict or remove them.”
In 2010, Richardson created and launched the NVIC Advocacy Portal, which provides free information about proposed state vaccine laws. Since then, she and her team have analyzed, tracked and issued positions on over 1,000 vaccine-related bills across the U.S.
“Until medical mandates are a relic of history — and that day is coming — religious exemptions are the primary way to avoid medical coercion,” said Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland.
According to Richardson, only three states — Hawaii, Massachusetts and New Jersey — proposed legislation this year attempting to remove school vaccine mandate exemptions. However, Hawaii lawmakers, under pressure from constituents, voted last month to table the bill, which would have repealed the state’s religious exemption from vaccine mandates.
Meanwhile, other states are advancing legislation that strengthens or expands vaccine exemptions. For instance, Alabama lawmakers on April 3 passed a bill that specifies that a parent or guardian’s written declaration is “sufficient documentation” to exempt his or her child from a vaccine requirement for religious reasons.
Alabama lawmakers are also considering a bill that would require private and church schools to accept religious exemptions to vaccine requirements.
On March 26, Utah’s governor signed into law a measure to ensure that public school students’ vaccine exemption forms don’t expire and that they travel with them when the students transfer to another school.
Some of the state bills proposed this year focus on exemptions from vaccine mandates in the workplace rather than at school.
For example, Texas lawmakers are considering a law that would require healthcare facilities that have vaccine mandates to honor exemptions for “reasons of conscience, including a religious belief.”
Texas also introduced three other bills related to expanding or improving vaccine exemptions, according to legislative data Richardson shared with The Defender.
‘Momentum is gaining to remove vaccine mandates’
Holland noted that a handful of states allow only medical exemptions, not religious exemptions. Those states are California, New York, Connecticut and Maine. “They make even legitimate medical exemptions virtually impossible to obtain.”
“The good news,” Holland said, “is that Idaho just became the first medical freedom state, by outlawing any medical intervention mandates that prohibit people from participating in social life based on medical status. Likely, this will be a template for other states going forward.”
Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed the law almost a week after he vetoed a previous version of the bill, citing concerns it would have prohibited schools from sending home “sick students with highly contagious conditions.”
The new version of the bill clarifies that schools and businesses can turn away students, employees or customers who are sick, but they cannot require a medical intervention, including a vaccine.
The new version also specified that schools cannot exclude unvaccinated children during an outbreak of a contagious disease they are not vaccinated against.
Bills that outright prohibit vaccine mandates ‘much preferable’
Richardson said bills like the one passed in Idaho are part of a positive trend she and her team are seeing across recent legislative sessions, including this one.
“Momentum is gaining to remove vaccine mandates,” she said, “but medical trade and pharmaceutical lobbyists are working against medical freedom and informed consent.”
“This is why it is so important for people to speak with their legislators about how prohibiting vaccine mandates and requiring informed consent to vaccination without penalty for saying ‘no’ is very important to them,” Richardson said.
Bills that outright prohibit vaccine mandates — rather than just ensuring that a person can apply for an exemption — are “much preferable” in Richardson’s view because they “make vaccine exemptions not even necessary.”
“As we saw with school vaccine exemptions,” Richardson said, “sometimes [exemptions] can get taken away as evidenced in recent years in California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and Vermont.”
‘People are waking up’
NVIC’s mission is to prevent vaccine injuries through public education and to advocate for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws.
Commenting on state legislative action since 2010, NVIC’s Executive Director Theresa Wrangham said she has seen a shift toward more proposed legislation to protect informed consent and people’s choice to vaccinate or not vaccinate without penalty.
When NVIC first began, Wrangham said she saw a “lot of movement to try to restrict exemptions.” But overall, that’s changed. “I think people are waking up …That’s grassroots. That’s people getting involved.”
Wrangham said it’s important for families to educate themselves about vaccine risks versus benefits as they make their decisions.
There is no “risk-free” option, she said. “There’s just the ability to make a decision — an informed decision around what risk you’re willing to take. That’s really what informed consent is about. Let’s make sure everybody has good information. Let’s not let our fear run us.”
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