[Ketchum, ID] – On December 23, 2025, Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF), California Educators for Medical Freedom (CAEMF), and several individual plaintiffs petitioned the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to review a case that raises one of the most consequential constitutional questions of our time: Do Americans possess the fundamental right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, even during a public health crisis?
A sweeping decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dangerously ignores more than a century of Supreme Court jurisprudence and effectively strips courts of their duty to protect individual liberty. The ruling allows governments to impose mandatory medical interventions without meaningful judicial review, so long as officials invoke “public health.”
“For generations, Americans have relied on courts to balance public health needs with personal freedom,” said Scott Street, counsel for the plaintiffs. “The Ninth Circuit abandoned that balance, granting government officials virtually unchecked power over individuals’ bodies so long as they cite public health and say there is an emergency, regardless of the efficacy of their orders.”
When the Ninth Circuit cited Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 Supreme Court case involving smallpox vaccinations, it not only misconstrued Jacobson, it ignored how constitutional law has evolved over the past 120 years.
Contrary to the Ninth Circuit’s claim, Jacobson did not give governments unlimited authority to mandate medical treatment without evidence or accountability. Instead, as later Supreme Court decisions made clear, Jacobson applied a balancing test—weighing an individual’s liberty interest against the government’s actual, demonstrated need to protect public health.
That balancing approach was reaffirmed repeatedly throughout the twentieth century in cases such as Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, where the Supreme Court explicitly recognized a person’s constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment. Courts across the country, including the Ninth Circuit itself in earlier decisions, consistently described Jacobson as a case that balanced liberty and state interests—not one that eliminated judicial scrutiny altogether. Yet during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ninth Circuit and other circuit courts, turned a blind eye to this precedent.
The Ninth Circuit held that due to a legal principle known as rational basis review, judges don’t need to consider whether a mandated medical intervention actually prevents disease as long as the government policy is rational. According to the ruling, as long as politicians and executive officials could have believed a medical intervention serves public health, the courts need not become involved.
The plaintiffs warn this reasoning is unprecedented—and dangerous.
Under the Ninth Circuit’s framework, courts must accept the government’s assertions at face value and may not require evidence, justification, or even minimal proof. Plaintiffs assert that this standard allows judges to imagine hypothetical reasons for a policy, even if those reasons are unsupported by facts.
The plaintiffs argue this standard has no place when fundamental rights such as the right to direct one’s own medical care are at stake.
“Bodily autonomy is the most basic of human rights and the government should only override that liberty when an individual poses a threat to themselves or others, but the Ninth Circuit held that government may trample this sacred right without evidence or judicial oversight,” said HFDF president, Leslie Manookian.
The implications extend far beyond vaccines. As the dissenting judges in the Ninth Circuit warned, if the government can mandate medical treatments simply because officials believe they might reduce symptoms, there is no clear limit to what could be compelled.
Today it may be one type of injection. Tomorrow, it could be forced medication, invasive procedures, or other treatments imposed against a person’s will—all justified in the name of public health, with no opportunity for citizens to challenge the government in court.
The plaintiffs are urging the Supreme Court to grant review because only the nation’s highest court can resolve the glaring conflict over how Jacobson should be understood today.
The Supreme Court now faces a clear choice:
- Reaffirm that Americans retain the right to bodily autonomy, protected by meaningful judicial review; or
- Allow an outdated and distorted reading of Jacobson to become a permanent justification for unchecked government power.
“This case is not just about the Covid crisis,” said Manookian. “It’s about the future of liberty in America.”
To read the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari and more background on the case click here.
