Illinois, South Carolina, and New Mexico took the top three spots overall, with Illinois having legal safeguards on the books in 85% of the categories that First Liberty studied. That score is 18 percentage points higher than the second state, South Carolina, at 67%. Nineteen of the 20 health-care-related safeguards were present in Illinois; however, three states — Mississippi, Ohio, and Arkansas — have all 20.
Several states near the top of the list were clustered in the Rust Belt and the South, and to a lesser extent in the West — in addition to New Mexico, Washington state ranked sixth and Utah 11th.
Despite average and median state scores increasing this year versus 2022, “the vast majority of states grant less than half of the potential safeguards,” the researchers opined.
On the medical side, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington have all enacted “general conscience provisions,” which do not specify the type of medical care covered but offer protection to those who refuse to take part in any medical services that are contrary to their beliefs.
Since last year’s report, two states, South Carolina and Rhode Island, made improvements to their health care conscience provisions and absentee voting laws, respectively. Connecticut regressed, eliminating a religious exemption from its childhood immunization requirement, with a statutory change that took full effect in the fall of 2022.
A state’s reputation, earned or not, of being either “red” or “blue” was not a good predictor of how well it protects religious freedom. The top state, Illinois, has been Democratic Party-led for years, while West Virginia is, on the whole, conservative.