Alabama Senate OKs bill loosening regulations for religious vaccine exemptions

A nurse holds a vial of COVID-19 vaccine and syringe. (Getty Images)

The Alabama Senate Tuesday approved a bill that would loosen regulations for religious exemptions for vaccines in schools. .

SB 246, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, passed 24-5. The bill would allow parents who have a religious objection to vaccination to declare that in a statement to the local board of education. The parent would not have to provide evidence or win the approval of the board.

Orr said that the bill was about parental choice. 

“And just require in writing that this go to the school for their records that the parent requests or wants their child exempted on religious grounds,” he said.

He said that employees at the Department of Health are not supposed to but some question people about their religious beliefs. 

State health officials have expressed concerns about declining vaccination rates in the state.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rate in Alabama hit 94% in 2022-2023, down from 95% for the 2021-2022 school year.

The CDC says that at least 95% of the population needs to be vaccinated against measles to create herd immunity. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people become infected after being exposed to measles.

Democrats on the floor spoke extensively on the floor against the bill, saying it could endanger people.

Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, said she was vaccinated and caught COVID-19 twice. Coleman-Madison said she quarantined in Montgomery, but said that the bill suggested it would have been fine if she went to the Senate and spread the disease.

“On one side of the coin we talk about, well, ‘Parents have their rights, everybody should have their rights,’ but on the other bills like a woman’s rights, women don’t have any rights,” she said. “The same senators that get up and espouse about the rights that people should have and everybody should have, women aren’t considered as people.”

Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, proposed having separate classrooms for vaccinated and unvaccinated students. He said that would give the different sides the same rights.

“This is lopsided,” he said.

Republican senators Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, and Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia, who both practiced medicine, said that if a person believes in vaccines, they should not be concerned about being around unvaccinated students.

“If you’re unvaccinated, you’re the one that shouldn’t be worried about going to school,” Melson said.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, proposed an amendment that would prevent the questioning of religious beliefs by the Department of Health, but Orr said that was already not allowed.

Singleton said the bill was “empowering” people to say no to vaccines, which he said could spread communicable diseases and potentially death.

“I think it’s a slippery slope that we really truly don’t want to open these doors to,” said Singleton. “I wish there was another way we could try to fix it.”

Singleton brought up an outbreak of measles in Florida.

The bill moves to the House of Representatives.

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