My youngest is a junior in high school. He could have stayed at home by himself and worked on his college essays from the couch. But parents with younger children don’t have that same option. While it was fun to have him with me to learn about his state government, it’s not a childcare solution for most, and it certainly wouldn’t have been practical for a longer period of time. Kansas parents are all too familiar with this calculus, and while our society hasn’t yet identified workable solutions (my childcare tax credit proposal sat untouched in committee last year), this pandemic has at the very least amplified the issue.

You can understand why I was baffled when, during the November special session, four senators introduced Senate Bill 2.

This sweeping proposal would make it essentially impossible to respond to future public health crises. It would roll back the clock on proven epidemic-prevention policies. And it would increase the likelihood of outbreaks of diseases that have been contained for decades by giving the Legislature — not public health professionals — discretion over the specific vaccines required to attend school.

It would also broaden the definition of a religious exemption in such a way that religion needn’t have anything to do with one’s choice to waive an inoculation against measles or meningitis. With the under-12 COVID vaccination rate where it is, it is frightening to consider the potential rise of these devastating diseases — and the sacrifices our communities, schools and families will be forced to make to protect our children.

The sponsors of this bill — Senators Mark Steffen, Alicia Straub, Caryn Tyson, and my fellow Johnson Countian Mike Thompson — have been vocal COVID-19 skeptics since the beginning of the pandemic. They have promoted pseudoscience, questioned the veracity of medical consensus and encouraged Kansans to forgo safe, effective vaccines. Senate Bill 2 died at the conclusion of special session, but that doesn’t mean its sponsors’ zeal has weakened in the new year.

A bill that may get pushed out of committee this week would give legal cover to doctors who favor conspiracy theories over peer-reviewed data and prescribe off-label drugs to treat COVID-19. Senator Steffen disclosed during that bill’s hearing that he is currently under investigation by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for prescribing ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. (Coincidentally, ivermectin is approved as a treatment for the one thing that regularly disrupts schools: head lice.)

This pandemic has been frightening, confusing, and frustrating, and has left many of us seeking clear answers where there sometimes aren’t any. I have to have hope that we will get through this particular challenge, that we will continue to come together to confront the unknown.

If we can’t find a way to overcome the discomfort and fear, we’ll slip perilously backwards, and I fear we won’t be able to dig ourselves out of this conflict — or any future challenge, big or small.