by: Craig Stellpflug
(NaturalNews) Criminals have more constitutional rights than medical patients. Gone are the rights of due process and second opinions. It seems that patients are somehow bereft of Sixth Amendment rights to counsel. When doctors are pitted against patients, the courts often defer to the fallible physicians' demands that patients submit their bodies to them. Forced care condones coercion and denies fundamental, medical principles of informed consent and informed refusal.
Samantha Burton was 25 weeks pregnant when her membranes ruptured. Following good sense, she sought help from her obstetrician, Dr. Jana Bures-Forsthoefel. When Samantha tried to leave the hospital for a second opinion this outrageous doctor refused to allow her to leave and then grabbed a court order requiring Samantha to forsake her job and children at home and undergo "any and all medical treatments" the physician deemed necessary. The Kangaroo Court hearing by telephone from her hospital bed denied Samantha the opportunity for an attorney or her requested second opinion and request to change hospitals. Sadly, three days into her court-ordered confinement, Samantha lost her baby.
After laboring at home and becoming dehydrated, Laura Pemberton sought medical help and requested intravenous fluids, but physicians conditioned her medical care on agreement to a cesarean section. She refused the procedure and left the hospital. The demigod doctors snatched a court order to retrieve her from her home and forced her to the hospital by ambulance. She was then subjected to undergo an apparently unnecessary cesarean section.
In the ongoing case of 10-year-old Jacob Stieler, omniscient doctors compelled the Michigan DHS into seeking to force deadly treatment upon the child against the parents' wishes. PET scans show Jacob to be in cancer remission but the powers that be maintain he still needs poisonous chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The doctors insist that Jacob will surely die without treatment even though the recommended drugs are not FDA approved for his treatment. Attorney Michael Farris, says "There's no doubt that in the day that we live in, the medical community thinks it gets to decide what we all should do."
Hospital lawyers deputized
Forced care cases are usually heard on an emergency basis and judicial decisions are made without full briefing on relevant law, medicine, and policy. A patient put into a forced care situation has the undue burden to instantaneously conjure up expert witnesses to testify on their behalf. Hospital lawyers deputized to act as state attorneys have a clear conflict of interest as noted by the Supreme Court of Florida, saying it is inappropriate for a hospital "to argue zealously against the wishes of its own patient," and "it cannot act on behalf of the State to assert the state interests" when a competent adult refuses care. (Matter of Dubreuil).
Of course, subjecting a patient to forced care, even court-ordered care, may lead to a lawsuit for violations of civil and constitutional rights. Courts' opinions generally begin with the premise that "every person of adult years and sound mind has the right to determine what shall be done with his body." (Schloendorff v. Society of N.Y. Hospital).
Physicians should discuss the risks, benefits, and alternatives for recommended care at the bedside or in the exam room and then let it go and never involve courts. At the bedside and with the patients' autonomy intact is where it should end.
Right to know
Physicians who seek judicial intervention should disclose that practice so patients can seek care elsewhere. Next thing will be that patients will be prosecuted and jailed for adverse outcomes when they reject medical care. In the case of refusing harmful vaccinations (which are medical procedures with deadly risks), it is already happening in other countries.