Medical Kidnapping: The Hidden Scourge on America

When we announced earlier this year that We The Patriots USA would be launching an initiative to end medical kidnapping in America, the response wasn’t quite what we expected. Well, more accurately, the response was pretty nonexistent. While a few faithful supporters who were in the know about this problem reached out to thank us, the majority didn’t say anything. And when we posted it on our social media pages for the general public to see, we were surprised at how many people didn’t even know the meaning of the term “medical kidnapping.” But that seems to be changing now, as sadly our predictions about this growing crisis have come true.

To set the record straight, what we mean when we say “medical kidnapping” is any instance when a child is forcefully removed from his or her parents’ custody, either because the parent refused to do something (like vaccinate or formula-feed the child), or because the parent did something that does not align with mainstream medical guidelines (such as using supplements or natural remedies to treat a condition). This could happen in a hospital setting, as when the hospital refuses to allow the parents to take a child home after an emergency room visit or hospital stay (as in the case of Maya Kowalski, featured in the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya), or in the home, as when a state agency like Child Protective Services (CPS) or the Department of Children and Families (DCF) knocks on the door with police and forcefully removes the child from the parents. We call this kidnapping because that’s exactly what it is. After all, what else would you call it someone takes a child from her mother without the mother’s permission?

It is all done, of course, under the auspices of protecting the “best interests of the child.” What would clearly be a felony if it were committed by a stranger on a playground is somehow justified when it’s committed by a doctor in a hospital room. But unless there is real evidence of actual abuse or neglect, it’s clearly nothing more than kidnapping. The fact that a state official does it rather than a sketchy guy driving an old van shouldn’t be any consolation. Kidnapping is kidnapping.

This issue has been once again brought to the forefront in recent weeks, when reports emerged that two Massachusetts homeschooling parents were arrested - and lost custody of their children to the Massachusetts DCF - because they failed to vaccinate their nine-month-old baby, and fled to Texas to avoid the medical kidnapping. According to the news reports, Isael Rivera and Ruth Encarnacion traveled to Texas after DCF left a notice on their door demanding a “home visit,” and then twice showed up at their home with police. The family was located by police in Whitney, Texas on March 8, 2025, where the children were found unharmed. The parents were arrested and each charged with five misdemeanor counts of “kidnapping a minor by a relative.” Each parent faces up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine per charge.

According to Boston Broadside news, Rivera alleged that the situation all began when a doctor reported the parents for refusing a vaccination: “The doctor said if we didn’t vaccinate, he’d have to report us.” Tragically, this is not an isolated incident. Earlier this year, we reported the story of Mary Prescott in Connecticut, who contacted We The Patriots USA for legal assistance after the state DCF also demanded a “home visit” when she failed to vaccinate her newborn in accordance with “doctor’s orders.” Luckily, Mary contacted us early in the process, and our legal team was able to swiftly intervene before things progressed any further. After our attorney sent a stern letter to DCF explaining that it had no authority to make such a demand, the state quickly backed down, and took no further action.

But this doesn’t just happen in deep “blue” states like Connecticut and Massachusetts. It happened in Idaho in 2022, when the state took custody of baby Cyrus Anderson, after the hospital made a report of neglect to CPS when the mother missed a scheduled appointment regarding the child’s weight loss. A similar story played out in Ohio last year, where a breastfeeding mother contacted us after her baby was stolen by the state following a report made by her pediatrician, for alleged neglect after the mother missed an appointment regarding the child’s purportedly slow weight gain. The mother didn’t show up for the appointment because she had decided to see a lactation consultant and another pediatrician, who supported her decision to feed her child exclusively with breastmilk. The aforementioned story of Maya Kowalski happened in Florida. And in 2023, our legal team successfully returned four children to the custody of their parents in Missouri, after the state placed the children in foster care simply because the parents used an alternative medical treatment known as chlorine dioxide to treat their six-year-old son’s autism (with great results, by the way). You can read their story here, where you’ll also find a link to an interview with the parents. Again, there was no evidence that any of the children had been harmed in any way. But the state in that instance was able to take custody of the children on the strength of a letter from a single pediatrician, who claimed that the treatment could potentially be dangerous.

But regardless of the state, that it is happening anywhere in this country is nothing short of outrageous. And more people need to be outraged, and expressing it to their elected leaders. The only silver lining to stories like these is that it brings greater awareness to the problem, which is truly a scourge on this nation. But awareness is useless without action. For our part, we will continue fighting for every family who suffers this fate, to the maximum extent that our resources permit us to do so. Ideally, we would like to set up a medical kidnapping division within our organization, to focus exclusively on legal efforts to bring these children home, and to prevent children from being stolen in the first place. But for that, we will literally need several million dollars. Most people reading this can’t provide us with that level of funding, but that’s okay. We can make great headway toward our goal just the same with thousands of small donations. For instance, if all 17,066 subscribers to this Substack gave just $10, we’d have $170,660. That would be a heck of a start. If every one of you gave $20, we’d have over $340,000. That’s enough to hire two attorneys to work full-time exclusively on medical kidnapping cases for an entire year. We understand that not everyone is able to give. But if you can, please help us end medical kidnapping in America by making a gift today. Gifts to We The Patriots USA are tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. tax law.