A Definition of Medical Freedom
What Does Medical Freedom Mean?
Fortunately, Clayton J. Baker, M.D., presented a definition of Medical Freedom on the website of the Brownstone Institute. Dr. Baker presents a comprehensive and fully articulated presentation of the intention and meaning of Medical Freedom. He also articulates the goals and intentions as practiced by physicians, government and others. These goals would be under the protection of the Medical Freedom Amendment.
Dr. Clayton J. Baker, M.D. “ is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.”
Here is Dr. Baker’s definition of Medical Freedom, a continuation of rights for the past, now, and the future. The link below is to his full article published by the Brownstone Institute.
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-medical-freedom-exactly/
- "Medical freedom is a moral, ethical, and legal concept, essential to the just and proper practice of medicine, that asserts the following:
- The individual patient’s autonomy over his or her own body with regard to any and all medical treatment is absolute and inalienable.
- Physicians and public health officials do not possess the authority to deprive any citizen of their fundamental civil rights, including during a declared medical emergency.
- The four fundamental pillars of medical ethics – autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice – are essential to medical practice and must be observed at all times by all physicians, nurses, public health officials, researchers, manufacturers, and all others involved in health care."
Dr. Baker adds further important meaning to physicians' role in Medical Freedom and certain elements that are in conflict and are abuses of Medical Freedom.
"In the wake of the Covid-19 catastrophe, and in light of the innumerable abuses and affronts to basic civil rights that the public health establishment and the physicians under them inflicted upon citizens, several derivative statements follow.
- Patient autonomy depends upon informed consent, confidentiality, truth-telling, and protection against coercion.
- Informed consent must be obtained for all health care interventions, including but not limited to invasive procedures, vaccinations, and medications. To be valid, informed consent requires a competent patient (or a competent proxy representing the patient’s best interest) who receives full disclosure, and after understanding it, voluntarily agrees.
- Confidentiality is central to patient autonomy. Specifically, any “health passport” type of public health approach violates patient autonomy and must be forbidden.
- Truth-telling. Physicians and health officials are duty-bound to tell the truth. Willful deviation from this violates patient autonomy and must result in professional discipline.
- Coercion of any kind, applied to patients or health care providers, violates patient autonomy. This includes bribery, incentivization, threats, blackmail, public shaming, scapegoating, exclusion or ostracization from society, deceptive advertising, and all other forms of coercion.
- Beneficence requires that all treatments given to a patient should be done only when the prospect, intention, and likelihood of providing genuine benefit to that patient exists. There must be no “taking one for the team.”
- Non-maleficence refers to the “First, do no harm” precept of medical practice. No medical treatment should be imposed on any patient that is likely to harm the patient, or where the risk/benefit ratio is negative for that patient.
- Justice requires that both the benefits and burdens of medical care must be distributed equally throughout the population. A new emphasis on the protection of vulnerable populations, especially children, is essential.
- Public health directives that impact citizens’ civil rights in any way must be enacted lawfully through legislation, not by emergency declaration or by executive or bureaucratic fiat.
- Refusal of treatment should never result in punishment. Specifically, it must not preclude a patient from receiving other treatments, except where the first treatment is an absolute medical prerequisite for the second treatment.
- Open and honest debate. The medical profession must allow, and indeed encourage, open and honest debate within its ranks, without fear of reprisal.
- Censorship, silencing, intimidation, and punishment of physicians and other health providers for making statements contrary to the officially approved or majority medical narrative must be prohibited, under penalty of professional and/or legal punishment of the censors.
- Patient redress. Patients must have the right to seek real and meaningful redress for any kind of negligent or malicious harm done to them by any physicians, health care systems, public health officials, or producers of drugs or other health care products. No one involved in the healthcare enterprise may be immune, and laws providing such immunity must be removed.
- Outside influences. The medical profession must eliminate all undue outside influences from its decision-making process, including financial incentives from industry, private foundations, insurance companies, and unelected international entities.
- The patient-physician partnership. The patient, working one-on-one with their physician, must make clinical care decisions, with the patient reserving ultimate authority to decide. Clinical care decisions must not be predetermined by government bureaucrats, statistical analyses, industry influence, insurance carriers, or other outside influences.
- Protocols. The mandated or coerced use of strict or inflexible protocols in medical practice must be prohibited. Variation from protocols, to allow for individualized patient care decisions, must be allowed."
I trust myself or my health care provider and ask the government to provide truthful information and directives that do not interfere with my inalienable rights, create harm or increase risks. It makes one lose much faith when the government uses the media as a propaganda tool and even goes so far as to dividing me from my neighbor and castigating opponents who have spoken earnestly about medical practice when in a medical controversy.
Most importantly, People have the right to secure their health in the manner they choose. This is the very first statement of the Medical Freedom Amendment.
Now is the time! We must act to ensure the passage of the Medical Freedom Amendment!
"All people have the Right to secure their Health in the manner they choose. Congress, the President, State Legislatures and Executives, Governmental Agencies or Departments shall make no law, rule, regulation, countermeasure, executive, or emergency order that impedes the Individual's rights to informed consent nor right to medical choice nor freedom of medical choice. Nor shall the President, Congress, State Legislatures and Executives, Governmental Agencies or Departments make any law, rule, regulation, countermeasure, executive, or emergency order that impedes the Individual's right to medical privacy and freedom without individual and specific judicial warrant supported by Oath and affirmation of necessary cause to protect Society from Harm describing the Individual's condition and danger it presents."
Medical Freedom is a political issue! We know the forces of moneyed interests seek its defeat because they are the power behind its abuse and propaganda.
This great loss of medical freedom with informed consent is the most important singular problem we must confront and do it now, immediately. Adding Medical Freedom to the Bill of Rights requires its addition to the United States Constitution. It is not only a political issue, it is a moral and ethical issue.
As a political issue we must know every Representative's voting position. Only by knowing our Representative’s position on this issue can we bring powerful political action that each of us can perform. By determining each Representative's position we can unite and focus on Medical Freedom. Yes, or No. Our vote becomes powerful and crystal clear – Will it be Medical Freedom or "business as usual"?
Find out by physically taking the Questionnaire to the Representative’s office and personally demand an answer, then email [email protected]
the results of the Questionnaire and your meeting.
Letter to Your Representative with the MFA Questionnaire
Petition to circulate with all contacts.
The National Health Federation (NHF) is the first organization to endorse and support the Medical Freedom Amendment. Hopefully, other organizations will soon follow in NHF's footsteps. This comports with NHF's nearly seven-decades-long tradition of promoting and defending health freedom as well as its long history of consumer and individual health protection on local and global levels, including its unique position of participation in the Codex Alimentarius process.
The NHF Medical Freedom Amendment Campaign
-Michael LeVesque-