Reps. Michael Rulli (R-OH) and Erin Houchin (R-IN) introduced the “COVID-19 Vaccination Non-Discriminatiion Act” on Friday. The bill, shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner, would prohibit federal funds from being made available to facilities that refuse to provide treatment based on COVID-19 vaccination status.

The legislation comes after Jeneen Deal, who is related through marriage to Vice President JD Vance, said Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center requires her daughter, Adaline, to receive COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, which Deal and her husband do not want to give her, for her to be placed on the transplant list.

Adaline, whom the couple adopted from China when she was 4 years old, was born with two heart conditions. Deal told the Cincinnati Enquirer they knew Adaline would need a transplant when they adopted her and, on a GoFundMe page, said her health had started to decline over the last few months.

“She has grown so much that now her heart can’t sustain her,” Deal wrote.

But, in a video with Stephanie Stock, president of Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, Deal said the doctors told her Adaline needed the COVID-19 vaccination to get a new heart — and when the family asked for a religious exemption, the hospital declined them.

“That is against everything we believe in,” Deal said via Fox News.

For Rulli, who represents the district that includes Cincinnati Children’s, transplanting is a personal experience he is familiar with after his mother-in-law required a double-lung transplant. He said he understands the desperate and laborious process families go through to get on a transplant list.

“It usually could take anywhere from six months to two or three years, and sometimes it never comes,” Rulli said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

Over the last few years, he said he thinks America’s culture “messed up a lot of things with COVID-19,” which is causing families such as the Deals to suffer. Rulli introduced the bill with Houchin to prevent any other children from being told they cannot have a transplant, he said.

“For someone to go through the paperwork and realize that she didn’t have a COVID — and the key word here is COVID — vaccine that now she’s off the list? And she’s going to die because she didn’t get a COVID vaccine? … It stops right now,” Rulli said.

Rulli added that the bill has “nothing to do with promoting or taking away vaccines.” He said he has had hospitals reach out to him praising him for the legislation, while other hospitals have “called me the devil for doing this bill.”

“We are not going to allow our children to die because of a COVID vaccine,” Rulli said. “To me, that is insanity and cruelty. I cannot believe that the hospital would kick her off the list and sentence her to death because she didn’t have a COVID vaccine.”

Rulli said several lawmakers have reached out in support of the bill and that House leadership has shown “great enthusiasm” to push the legislation forward.

Houchin, who represents the district the Deals live in, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that denying children a “life-saving transplant” over the lack of a vaccine “is not science, it’s cruelty.”

“Hospitals exist to save lives, not impose politically-driven medical mandates on vulnerable patients,” Houchin said. “Families deserve the freedom to make the best medical decisions for their loved ones, without fear of being blacklisted from life-saving care. This bill will put an end to this unjust practice.”

In a statement last week, a spokesperson for Cincinnati Children’s did not directly address Adaline Deal’s specific transplant but said the number of available organs is limited and there is a responsibility “to ensure that every donated organ is used in a way that maximizes successful outcomes for children in need.”

“Because children who receive a transplant will be immunosuppressed for the rest of their life, vaccines play a critical role in preventing or reducing the risk of life-threatening infections, especially in the first year,” the spokesperson said. “These decisions involve discussion between our providers and the patient’s family.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Vance for comment.