Arizona Congressman John Fillmore introduced a bill on Jan. 14, 2021, that would give Arizona parents the freedom to override the state’s vaccination requirements for K-12 public school children if they so choose.
According to a study conducted by PLOS Medicine in 2018, Arizona was found to be an anti-vaccine hotspot in the country, meaning that a very high percentage of parents choose not to have their children vaccinated on the basis of religious or personal beliefs.
Current Arizona state law says that K-12 students who attend public schools in Arizona must have documentation proving that they have received certain immunizations before they are allowed to attend their school.
As of now, the only way to be exempt from the law is via a statute that allows a parent or legal guardian to file for approval to opt their child out of these vaccination requirements on the basis of medical exemptions or personal beliefs if the parent chooses to do so.
However, Rep. John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction) believes that parents should be able to choose not to vaccinate their children without the added steps of opting out of medical requirements.
In HB2065, he proposes that parents would have the right to make healthcare decisions for their children under the age of 18, including on the basis of vaccination, without needing to file for approval to opt-out of the required immunizations.
“A school may not require a pupil receive the recommended immunizations or refuse to admit or otherwise penalize a pupil because that pupil has not received the recommended immunizations,” the House Bill 2065 states.
“This is a freedom bill, this is not an anti-vaccination bill by any means,” Fillmore said.
FILLMORE COSIGNS APPEAL: English for Children prop seeks repeal in 2020
If approved, unvaccinated K-12 students would only be required to leave their school’s campus if there was an outbreak of a disease for which they had not been immunized.
“A pupil who lacks documentary proof of immunization may be excluded from school only if the pupil lacks an immunization for which there is an active case of a disease in that pupil’s school that the immunization is intended to prevent and the department of health services or a local health department has declared an outbreak of that disease for an area that includes the pupil’s school,” the bill continues.
This is not the first time that Arizona legislators have proposed bills that would make non-medical exemptions an easier option for Arizona families. In fact, it’s not even the first time Rep. Fillmore has proposed one of these bills.
House Bill 2050, introduced by Rep. Fillmore in early January 2020, proposed to amend the section on parents’ rights to give parents the right to choose whether to vaccinate their children, rather than the right to choose to opt-out of mandatory vaccinations. House Bill 2050 died in its committee.
“I do not believe that any government should ever under any circumstance have the ability to tell a person what they have to drink, eat, ingest, inoculate or tattoo upon their body,” Fillmore said. “I just think that’s crossing the line of civility.”
However, there have been concerns raised about whether or not teachers will be comfortable with this, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following the announcement of the bill, one tweet by Amy Lively read, “If living in a pandemic doesn’t show you the value of vaccines, nothing will. I doubt this will do much to address the teacher shortage in Arizona.” Lively is the current lead teacher at Great Hearts Academy in Goodyear, Arizona, and a former faculty member at Arizona State University, according to her LinkedIn profile.
If living in a pandemic doesn’t show you the value of vaccines, nothing will. I doubt this will do much to address the teacher shortage in Arizona.
— Amy Lively (@Ms_Historian) January 19, 2021
Sarah Richardson MEd, educator recruitment and retention specialist at the Arizona Departmemt of Education, also tweeted saying, “if anything, let’s strengthen vax requirements so we can get our kids back in the classroom.”
Other teachers weren’t as firm on the need to vaccinate.
“I choose to be vaccinated every flu season, and if I had kids of my own, I would vaccinate them as well,” Isabel Coffey, a teacher at North Phoenix Preparatory Academy, said. “However, not every individual feels the same, nor wants the same for their child, and I think people should have that choice.”
Coffey went on to explain that teachers and students work in extremely close quarters on a daily basis, and that the recent focus on health and safety in response to COVID-19 shed light on just how easily disease could spread within schools.
“Mandating vaccines could be a slippery slope, but so could relaxing vaccine guidelines in communities where there is a lot of close contact all the time,” Coffey said. “The easier it is to skip the vaccines, the more those susceptible individuals are going to get sick.”
If HB2065 passes in its assigned committees without an amendment, it will be placed on a Third Read calendar. If it is amended in committee and then passes, it will go to the Committee of the Whole in the House of Representatives. If the bill is passed in the house, it will move on to the Senate.
To follow the status of the bill, visit the Arizona Legislature website.
Contact the reporter at clparri2@asu.edu.
Cami is Downtown Devil's co-executive editor. Cami is a third-year student studying print journalism and political science. When she's not writing or editing, she enjoys hosting radio shows, playing piano and bass, and teaching art classes at a local art studio.
