Repealing statutory immunization requirements for children.
Madam Chair and Members of the Committee,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of HB 1811.
I am also submitting separately a written op‑ed discussing vaccines as a hidden pro‑life issue and the moral entanglement between the abortion industry and the vaccine industry. Today, however, I want to focus on something more personal and, I believe, more fundamental: informed consent, medical freedom, and the damage caused when the state replaces persuasion with coercion.
When my oldest children were young, I was not opposed to vaccines. I followed the recommended schedule, though I chose to delay and space them out — a decision my pediatrician respected.
When it came time for my oldest child to enter school, New Hampshire law required that I inject my child with the chickenpox vaccine. Based on my own childhood experience, I knew chickenpox to be a mild and common illness. I wanted to decline that vaccine.
At that visit, I was not seen by my usual doctor. The physician I saw was not interested in discussion or facts. She bullied me. She called me a negligent mother. She told me about how many children she had seen dying from chickenpox in hospitals — which was quite obviously a lie. I gave in to her fear mongering and left that office in tears.
That was not informed consent. That was coercion. And it only happened because the state empowered it. I did not know at the time that religious exemptions existed. I did not know I had rights. I only knew I was being forced to comply with something that violated my reason, my conscience, and my maternal instinct.
I want to be very clear: had that doctor attempted to persuade me with facts instead of fear, I very likely would not be standing here today as an outspoken critic of vaccine mandates. Instead, that encounter shattered my trust in the medical establishment.
Trust cannot be earned with force. It can only be earned with honesty, humility, and persuasion. Free citizens are owed informed consent. Medical decisions must be made without threats, penalties, or state coercion.
Before I close, I want to address the fiscal note that has been attached to this bill, which states that DHHS believes they will need to hire several more bureaucrats to handle the deluge of outbreaks if the vaccine mandates were to be repealed.
I have personal experience to share on this point as well. A couple years ago, my first fully unvaccinated child was forced by the state of Massachusetts to stay home from school for three weeks simply because he was in the same room as a child with chickenpox. He had no direct contact. He was given two options: stay home or be injected. This response was wildly disproportionate to the actual risk posed by the illness.
This assertion by DHHS reveals the real problem: our public health agencies dramatically overreact to mild, common childhood illnesses. Diseases like chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella carry extraordinarily low risks of serious harm or death in children. If the state did not respond to ordinary childhood illnesses as though they were Ebola, there would be no need for expanded bureaucracies or inflated budgets. The fiscal note reflects institutional panic, not medical reality.
HB 1811 is not anti‑science. It is pro‑freedom, pro‑truth, and pro‑informed consent. I urge the committee to support this bill and to restore the fundamental principle that medical decisions belong to families — not the state.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
