It's not a bad question to ask; the FSF has proven in the past to be rather uninterested and unhelpful in helping developers of medical software get their stuff licensed in a way that's either compliant or as close to as[0] being compliant as possible[1]. Instead they opted to chide those wanting help for not being true believers of the cause and told them they'll never compromise. Basically the usual "FSF is only ever willing to do FOSS in it's own Ivory Tower even though its mission is to spread it beyond an Ivory Tower."

That said - RMS has iirc said in the past that for medical emergencies he's willing to make a personal exception on this stance.

[0]: Medical devices can't be GPL compliant due to the anti-Tivo clause combined with regulations of the FDA that demand that a medical device will always behave the exact same way in the exact same situation. This is also extended to the software, meaning that not being allowed to reflash the software if you're not the manufacturer is a requirement.

[1]: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/gplv3-fda

> The only issue could only ever arises if he claimed "Free Software is more important than human lives", which I am pretty sure not a claim he, or anyone, has ever made.

Valuing freedom (even in limited spheres) more than human lives is a pretty familiar American idea. For example, recall Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" and consider that he was talking about the prospect of being taxed without his consent, not enslavement. Also, recall Private Eightball from Full Metal Jacket:

"Personally, I think, uh... they don't really want to be involved in this war. You know, I mean... they sort of took away our freedom and gave it to the, to the gookers, you know. But they don't want it. They'd rather be alive than free, I guess. Poor dumb bastards."

>the answer (to me) is obvious

The answer is obvious based on your own personal principles, or based on RMS's stated principles?

>The only issue could only ever arises if he claimed "Free Software is more important than human lives"

He claimed that it is categorically not good to use non-Free software, with one exception for using non-Free software to develop a replacement for that software; and that "we must resist stretching [that exception] any further": https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/is-ever-good-use-nonfree-prog...