The Right of INFORMED CONSENT – The Sources of the Law…

INFORMED CONSENT is Fundamenal…

By Ralph Fucetola JD – President, Institute for Health Freedom

 

This Law Note responds to the erroneous idea that the international humanitarian right of Informed Consent only applies in cases of war.

In Supreme Court Decision Missouri vs McNeely the court said:

“…this Court has never retreated from its recognition that any compelled intrusion into the human body implicates significant, constitutionally protected privacy interests.”

When people cite the Geneva Conventions [1] as a source of the right they are sometimes told that the Conventions only apply in time of war. We assert that the Conventions recognize a right of Informed Consent (by operation of the Nuremberg Code) but are clearly not the only source of legal support for the humanitarian right of Informed Consent.

There are many international agreements that were made in Geneva, the original home of the League of Nations and now the European base for the United Nations. Among those agreements are the Geneva Conventions proper, which relate to armed conflict. Among other matters, they cover the handling of criminal charges against prisoners of war. In that context, at the end of WWII, the Nuremberg Code was proclaimed.

The Nuremberg Code requires respect for Informed Consent, without “the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion…”

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