2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB1151

HB1151 adds protections for two kinds of medical decisions: refusing to administer or consent to a child's psychotropic medication or other psychiatric or psychological treatment, and choosing a recognized alternative health-care…

Read bill highlights ↓

Official caption: Relating to neglect of a child and the grounds for termination of the parent-child relationship and possession of a child by the Department of Family and Protective Services.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Hull. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

Report an error ↗

Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB1151 adds protections for two kinds of medical decisions: refusing to administer or consent to a child's psychotropic medication or other psychiatric or psychological treatment, and choosing a recognized alternative health-care treatment or therapy that may be new, emerging or nonstandard.
Each protection has the same important limits: It does not apply if the refusal—or, for alternative care, the treatment or therapy—either presents a substantial risk of death, disfigurement or bodily injury, or results in an observable and material impairment of the child's growth, development or functioning.
The act does not certify an alternative treatment as safe or effective, require a family to choose one, or give blanket permission to withhold necessary care.

Read the full explanation ↓

What does it do?

HB1151 adds protections for two kinds of medical decisions: refusing to administer or consent to a child’s psychotropic medication or other psychiatric or psychological treatment, and choosing a recognized alternative health-care treatment or therapy that may be new, emerging or nonstandard. The law took effect September 1, 2025, and its changes apply only to Department of Family and Protective Services suits filed on or after that date. Earlier department suits remain under prior law. Final law

The protections operate in three places:

Such evidence about a parent’s decision is not sufficient clear-and-convincing evidence to support termination of the parent-child relationship under the amended provision.
The corresponding decisions by a person responsible for a child’s care, custody or welfare are excluded from the neglect definition.
The department may not take possession of a child under the amended removal provision based on evidence of those parental decisions.

Each protection has the same important limits. It does not apply if the refusal—or, for alternative care, the treatment or therapy—either presents a substantial risk of death, disfigurement or bodily injury, or results in an observable and material impairment of the child’s growth, development or functioning. These are alternatives: actual impairment need not be shown if the substantial-risk condition is met. Conversely, losing this particular protection does not by itself establish every legal requirement for removal or termination.

The act does not certify an alternative treatment as safe or effective, require a family to choose one, or give blanket permission to withhold necessary care. It uses the word “recognized” but does not supply a list of approved alternatives. Existing Section 262.116(d) also allows the department to gather or offer the described evidence in a possession case; that is different from making the protected decision itself sufficient grounds for removal. Removal provision and evidence rule · Termination framework

What changed along the way?

All five indexed legislative versions—introduced, House committee, engrossed, Senate committee and enrolled—have identical operative text. The amendment index reports no amendments. Thus the harm/risk exceptions are part of the original enacted framework, not safeguards added by a floor amendment.

Governor Abbott signed HB1151 May 28, 2025. It passed the House 145–1, with one present but not voting, and the Senate 31–0. Existing protections reproduced in the bill, such as those concerning homeschooling, second medical opinions and certain immunization decisions, were not newly created by HB1151. History · Text versions · Introduced · House committee · Engrossed · Senate committee · Amendment index

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Parents and other covered caregivers gain clearer protection for the specified decisions when the statutory risk and impairment exceptions are absent. Child-protection authorities must distinguish disagreement over treatment from the conditions that remove those protections. Children remain the people whose health and functioning determine the exceptions; the act is not evidence that refusing treatment improves their health.

Both indexed Legislative Budget Board notes anticipate no significant state fiscal impact and no local-government fiscal impact, assuming the department and Office of Court Administration can absorb costs within existing appropriations. Neither gives a quantified two-year/five-year total or measures health outcomes, family legal expenses or investigation counts. Their short policy summaries omit the detailed risk/impairment exceptions; the final statutory text controls those limits. Introduced fiscal note · Engrossed fiscal note

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.