Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollinger's Island, casts a vote in the Alabama House of Representatives on April 25, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
A south Alabama representative has refiled a bill that would require unemancipated minors to receive parental consent for vaccinations.
Under current Alabama law, minors aged 14 and above can consent to their own medical treatments without parental approval. The new bill, sponsored by Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollinger’s Island, would mandate written consent from a parent or legal guardian before any minor can be vaccinated, except in cases where the minor is living independently.
In an interview, Brown said concerns grew out of the COVID-19 pandemic, though he did not name them. He added that this is not “necessarily a COVID bill” but a “vaccination bill that deals with parental rights.”
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“I think it’s important that issues like vaccinations and children’s health care, that parents have a say so, and that at the end of the day, that they’re the final say in their children’s health care,” Brown said in a phone interview.
The bill filed for the 2025 session is different from versions filed in 2023 and 2024, addressing specific issues such as minors who are wards of the state or living independently.
Brown said that Alabama’s current age of consent for medical decisions, set in the 1970s, might be outdated.
“I think we need to revisit this law and bring it in line with current standards,” he said.
Most states require parents to consent to medical care for children until they reach adulthood or are living independently of their parents. Aside from Alabama, only Louisiana (with the exception of the COVID vaccine), Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina allow minors to receive vaccinations without parental consent, though the age varies by state, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics . Alaska allows minors to receive a vaccine if parents can’t be reached or won’t grant consent, but a health care provider must reach out to parents or guardians first.
Kansas, Tennessee and Texas allow minors 16 and older to consent to general medical care, but not vaccinations.
Declines in vaccination rare can give rise to previously eradicated diseases, such as polio and measles. Officials in New York identified the first case of polio in an unvaccinated person in 2022 after three decades of eradication. The polio virus was also circulation in several wastewater system in places where the individual lived.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rate in Alabama fell to under 94% in 2022-2023, down from 95% for the 2021-2022 school year, which the CDC says is the threshold of people needed to be vaccinated against measles to create herd immunity. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people become infected after being exposed to the virus.
Mark Jackson, executive director of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, said that a decline in vaccination rates is alarming, but the association understands why such a bill might be wanted.
“The children’s vaccination rate has been on the decline in recent years, and we want to do all we can to encourage and promote vaccines. However we recognize a parent’s duty to be involved in health care decisions of a minor child,” he said.
The 2024 version of the bill passed the Alabama House but not the Senate. Rob Green, a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said that the bill filed earlier this year would have required written consent from a parent or legal guardian for any unemancipated minor to receive a vaccination. The new language, he said, would exempt unemancipated minors unless they are not dependent on a parent or legal guardian for support, are living apart from their parents or guardians and are managing their own affairs.
“The ADPH legislative team is pleased with the language consistency between the 2024 version and the current pre-filed version. We look forward to continuing to work with Representative Brown on his issues and concerns throughout the 2025 Regular Legislative Session,” Green said in a statement.
Dr. Nola Ernest, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics’s Alabama chapter, said in a statement she finds the bill concerning as it could create barriers to care, and parental consent for vaccines would place an unnecessary burden on the family, possibly resulting in missed wages for the family if a parent has to miss work.
“It is not uncommon for a grandparent or other extended family member to bring a child to the physician’s office in order for a parent to not miss work,” she said, adding that it is “unclear as to how this bill would allow for vaccine consent under these conditions.”
She also said it’s given the driving age in Alabama is 16, it is rare for a minor to present on their own before then. She said that most of the 16-year-olds coming on their own have previously been fully vaccinated with the consent of their parents.
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