A Minnesota bill seeks to give child care centers and family child care providers the authority to deny children with a non-medical exemption to vaccines from enrolling or remaining enrolled in their care.
The bill, HF 3179, would allow child care facilities to ignore a non-medical exemption if they choose to adopt a rule that prohibits children over the age of two months who are not completely immunized as required by the state “from enrolling or remaining enrolled in the child care center or the family child care program.”
Minnesota immunization law only requires a parent or guardian to show documentation of their child’s immunizations or a medical or non-medical exemption to enroll in child care programs. A notarized non-medical exemption is allowed when the child’s parents conscientiously choose to exempt them from one or all vaccines due to personal, moral, or other beliefs.
Minnesota is one of 15 states that allows for a philosophical exemption for an emancipated minor, or a child whose parent or guardian wishes to not follow a “one-size-fits-all” vaccine schedule, or completely be exempt from vaccines.
The bill’s author, Democratic state Rep. Mike Freiberg, did not respond to The Epoch Times’ multiple requests for comment.
Melissa Schultz, a spokesperson for Minnesotans for Health & Parental Rights—a volunteer organization that supports the right of people to “make individualized decisions” for their families—says that some child care facilities have been denying children with a non-medical exemption for several years.
“We actually have a pretty interesting daycare issue happening … for years and years, counties have been advising daycare providers that they don’t have to uphold the state law,” Schultz told The Epoch Times on Feb. 10.
She added, “So for years, they have been excluding children. It’s very hard to be unvaccinated and find a daycare in the state.”
New Horizon Academy, one of the larger child care centers with 68 locations in Minnesota, states that they do not accept children with a non-medical exemption.
“All children enrolled at New Horizon Academy must be following the state’s recommended schedule of immunizations. We do not enroll children who are not vaccinated because of conscientious objection,” the child care center stated on its webpage.
The Epoch Times has reached out to New Horizon Academy for comment.
Schultz claims that child care facilities denying children with a non-medical exemption may be doing so illegally now that a bill is trying to address this issue.
“Now just this week, a legislator has actually written a bill in order to exclude children from daycare. By writing that, it admits that what they’re doing right now or [has] happened for the past six years is illegal because if it was legal, they would not have to write the law,” Schultz said.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) Licensing Division told The Epoch Times they do not comment on whether child care centers can “choose to implement their own policy” to only accept immunized children since “it’s a kind of a complex legal matter.” The child care facilities are advised to consult with their lawyers.
The DHS Licensing Division monitors and supports “health and safety” in more than 10,000 child care programs in the state.
Tom Copeland, an attorney and advocate for family child care businesses, told The Epoch Times that “currently yes” it would be illegal for child care centers to deny enrollment to unvaccinated children claiming an exemption since “it sounds like this law is trying to change that.”
However, Copeland says that he doesn’t support non-medical exemptions.
“I can understand [exemption for] medical reasons, that’s a whole different ballgame. Religious reasons or personal philosophy reasons, I personally have a big problem with that because health should come before that, public health is more important than that, in my opinion,” Copeland said.
High Immunization Rate
The percentage of children aged 24 months and older who are fully vaccinated in accordance with the immunization schedule is between 91 to 97 percent in 2020–2021, according to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH).
Whereas, children with a non-medical exemption comprised only 1.8 to 2.14 percent depending on the vaccine type. The MDH did not have data for children who were completely exempted from all of the vaccines.
Screenshot of the percentages of non-medical exemptions in Minnesota for children enrolled in child care centers in 2020–2021. (MDH/screenshot by The Epoch Times)
The seven immunizations required for Minnesotan children to enroll in a child care center are hepatitis B; polio; measles, mumps, and rubella; diptheria, tetanus, and pertussis; varicella; hepatitis A; and haemophilus influenza type b.
The percentage of school-aged children with a non-medical exemption from some or all vaccines was also low. Less than two percent of parents had their child completely exempt from all the five required vaccines for kindergarten in the 2018–2019 school year, while 2.8 to 3.5 percent of children opted out of certain vaccines.
Screenshot of the percentage of children "conscientiously" exempted from all vaccines (purple line) in Minnesota. (MDH/screenshot by The Epoch Times)
In the same school year, there was around 91.8 to 95 percent of kindergarteners fully vaccinated with the required vaccines.
Push to Make Vaccines Mandatory and Lower Age of Consent
There has been a push to eliminate the non-medical exemptions across the country and lower the age of consent to vaccination, including in Minnesota.
Freiberg is also the author of three other vaccine-related bills in the state.
Bill HF 2625, introduced on May 13, 2021, seeks to lower the age of vaccine consent to as young as 12 years old. Consent by a parent or guardian would no longer be required if “the health care provider proposing to administer the vaccine to the minor” determines that the child is “capable of consenting to the proposed vaccine.” While the other bills are related to the required vaccines to enroll in daycare or school, HF 2625 will allow the child to consent to any vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.
The day after introducing the bill to lower the age to consent to vaccines, Freiberg introduced bill HF 2634 that seeks to make childhood vaccinations mandatory by removing the non-medical exemption. This would apply to every child who is homeschooled, in daycare, and in public and private schools.
In January 2022, Freiberg introduced HF 2832, a bill that requires all public and nonpublic school staff, including contractors, to receive two doses of the messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
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