Credit to Jason Phibbs from the Stanly County Freedom Network for this write-up:
Medical Freedom Act was gutted by the House Health Committee
The GOP majority in the state house strikes again. At the Stanly County GOP Convention, Rep. Sasser told me they were going to hear the bill on 3/21 and planned to replace “COVID-19” with “Emergency Use Authorization,” which would have made the bill stronger. While they heard the bill as planned on 3/21, they passed it out of committee with some devastating revisions and did not replace “COVID-19” with “Emergency Use Authorization.” Below is a rundown of what changed. I don’t know Rep. Sasser’s role in the hearing that day, but I do know the GOP has the majority on every committee, so there’s no reason this bill shouldn’t have been passed as is (if not strengthened). Wow! #DoNotForget
Original bill
- No government agency in the state could deny employment, discriminate, or retaliate on any employee for not taking the COVID vaccine
- Prohibited school boards from adopting mask policies or quarantining healthy students with ability of parents to file civil action
- Prohibits state entities from implementing health requirements prohibited under state law
- Prohibited k-12 public schools and public colleges from requiring COVID vaccine to attend for any reason
- Prohibits any public health agency, county, or city from requiring anyone to get COVID vaccine for any reason
Revised bill passed out of health committee (with 2 more committees to go before floor vote)
- Removes 2 and 3 completely
- A series of exceptions were added to 1 and 5 rendering them almost completely ineffective (pic 1)
- A major exception added to 5 (pic 2)
