() — A federal court upheld the rights of parents to decline vaccines for their children.
The September 22 ruling dismissed a challenge from an Idaho daycare that wanted to discriminate against parents based on the medical decisions they made for their children when it came to vaccination.
Le Soleil Daycare in Boise, Idaho, joined with three other parents to try to coerce other parents to get their kids jabbed.
The ruling followed a challenge to the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, which “prohibits businesses, schools, and government entities from denying a service, a job, or access to a public building because of a private medical decision a person made for themselves or their child,” the state attorney general wrote.
“Businesses remain free to run their operations, and to speak their minds, on every other front,” the office stated.
Attorney General Raul Labrador successfully defended the law in Idaho’s federal district court.
The daycare argued against the law on a number of counts, all of which were tossed out by the judge. Le Soleil and the three activist parents, for example, argued their free-speech rights were being curtailed if other kids were not coerced into getting jabbed.
U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford smacked down that argument, writing:
Le Soleil’s mission statement and particular ideals are insufficient to transform the relationship between a commercial daycare and its patrons into an expressive association. Le Soleil provides childcare services to parents who pay for those services.
The complaint does not allege that Le Soleil and Parent Plaintiffs have joined together for the purpose of expressing a shared message, as opposed to choosing to do business with one another because they share certain views concerning public health. The fact that Le Soleil and Parent Plaintiffs may share beliefs about vaccination and public health does not, without more, convert their commercial relationship into expressive association.
Several of the claims can be brought back up since they were dismissed without prejudice.
Labrador celebrated the ruling.
“Parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not,” he affirmed.
“The Legislature protected that choice in the Medical Freedom Act, and the court upheld it,” he said.
Labrador added that “(d)aycares can tell parents what they believe about vaccines and health, but they cannot turn a child away because of a parent’s medical decision.”
Republican Gov. Brad Little signed Senate Bill 1210 into law in April 2025 after vetoing an initial version, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.
The law followed concerns about the exclusion of individuals based on vaccination status during the outbreak of coronavirus. It specifically prohibits discriminating against people who decline to get jabbed for coronavirus.
