The “Medical Freedom” Movement

What do Americans really mean when they say they want “freedom”?

Activists often use the word “freedom” in the names of their organizations. Some groups, such as Stand for Health Freedom, Freedom Angels Foundation, Health Freedom Idaho, and Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, want the freedom to oppose public health measures, such as vaccination.

Nothing has energized the medical freedom movement more than the Covid-19 pandemic, which has spurned hundreds of legislative bills aimed at defeating measures limiting the impact of the virus. For example, in May 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill barring mask and vaccine mandates in Florida, boasting that his state was now “the national leader for medical freedom.” When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked to head the Department of Health and Human Services, he said that while he didn’t plan to “take away anybody’s vaccines,” he wanted people to have the freedom to choose which ones they take. Indeed, during the recent measles epidemic in West Texas that caused the first death of a child from measles in the United States in more than 20 years, RFK Jr. continued to insist that vaccination was a “personal choice.” In other words, it was your right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection during a measles epidemic.

The term “freedom” has a long and checkered history in the American lexicon. As described in Jefferson Cowie’s book, “Freedom’s Dominion,” the word “freedom” was also used as a rallying cry when Americans seized Native lands, championed succession, overthrew Reconstruction, questioned the New Deal, and fought against the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most striking example occurred on January 14, 1963, during the inauguration of George Wallace as Governor of Alabama. Wallace had emerged as a powerful opponent to the growing civil rights movement. His speech has been long remembered for the phrase, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever,” even though it was mentioned only once. The word “freedom,” on the other hand, was used ten times in phrases such as “sound the drum for freedom,” “rise to the call of freedom,” “spirit of pioneer freedom,” and “divinely inspired freedom.” The word “freedom,” in these historical contexts, including current cries for medical freedom, often means promoting individual liberties at the expense of other members of society.

How does the word “freedom” play out for those who cannot be vaccinated? On January 5, 2015, an unvaccinated 11-year-old California boy was hospitalized for measles. The child had visited the Disneyland theme park a couple of weeks earlier. In the days that followed, California public health officials were alerted to eight additional cases linked to the theme park. The California measles outbreak spread to seven other states, accounting for 125 more cases. Then it spread to Mexico and Canada, accounting for another 150 cases. In response, a California state senator named Richard Pan introduced Senate Bill 277 (SB277), which eliminated California’s philosophical exemption to vaccination. Because California never had a religious exemption to vaccination, the only exemption that remained was a medical exemption. Anti-vaccine activists came out in force to oppose the bill.

During the hearings for SB277, one little boy walked up to the microphone. His name was Rhett Krawitt. Only seven years old, Rhett was suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Because he couldn’t be vaccinated, Rhett needed to be surrounded by people with a high level of immunity to the virus. That way he could hide in the herd. “I have leukemia,” said Rhett. “I can’t be vaccinated. I depend on you to protect me. Don’t I count?” According to RFK Jr. and the medical freedom movement, the answer is clearly, “No, Rhett. You don’t.”