North Dakota urgently needs a medical battery law because the current statutes fail to protect healthcare workers from unauthorized, coercive, and/or unlicensed medical procedures. Under NDCC Chapter 43-17, only licensed physicians, resident physicians, and physician assistants are legally authorized to obtain informed consent. Anyone else — regardless of institutional affiliation — is practicing medicine illegally. Yet during Kjelland’s experience, swabs and injections were inserted under duress by staff who did not meet these licensure requirements. That wasn’t just unethical — it was a criminal act, and North Dakota had no felony statute to prosecute it.
This legal gap allowed administrators to override autonomy, dismiss religious exemptions, and delegate medical authority to unqualified personnel — all without consequence. Betrayed By Big Med documents how informed consent was bypassed, licensure boundaries were ignored, and retaliation followed when Kjelland objected. Chapter 42 exposes how NDCC §43-17 was violated, and Chapter 40 shows how federal law and precedent were dismissed. A medical battery law would codify who can legally obtain consent, define medical battery as a Class C felony, and protect conscience-driven care from institutional abuse. Without it, North Dakota healthcare workers remain vulnerable to policy-driven violations that silence dissent and compromise dignity.
