Wendi T.
crunchymountainmomma
swearnoallegiance
trunthepaige
shamelesslyred
Guest Author
Medically negligent-a parent’s worst nightmare
Posted by crunchymountainmomma on May 15, 2009
I’m not as stunned as I wish I could be. A Minneapolis judge has ruled, despite a family’s objections, that they must allow their son to be evaluated to see if he would benefit from chemotherapy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090515/ap_on_he_me/us_med_forced_chemo
This is just insane. A parent chooses(in the best of cases-I’ll admit there are some parents who don’t give 2 hoots for their child’s welfare) to give the best to their children.
If my children were to ever be diagnosed with cancer, I would fight tooth and nail for the treatment *I* saw to be best for them. The bad thing to chemotherapy is that it’s a poison that you hope kills the cancer before it kills you.
This family’s religious rights are being violated. The courts will rule that because they allowed one treatment, they violated their own religious rights. Perhaps this family had no knowledge of the dangers or the exact nature of chemotherapy. The hard reality is that most doctors have a “I’m the doctor and I know better than you do” mentality. They frequently assume that people know without question what all the treatments entail and when they are questioned, talk down to them.
My family uses naturopathic and holistic treatments almost exclusively. We do use allopathic treatmetn when it’s become patently obviuos that I cannot treat it myself. But to know that a judge might order me to hand my children over for poison just infuriates me.
When did we abdicate our authority as those that deem what’s best for our family and how can we get it back?
Ellen said
This judge is protecting the child’s right to treatment in the case of the possibility that the parents’ desires are not in the child’s best interest. There are cases where parental beliefs are not evidence-based, and there should always be a second opinion given in the case where big-gun treatments are a consideration. There are parents with mental illness that “beat the devil” out of their children, and they believe they are doing good. The judge is intervening because the circumstance is unusual that a recommended treatment for a terminal illness would be avoided in the case of a child. Ultimately, the best course is for the family to make a decision about treatment after receiving the advice of experts in the care of that disease. That is why the consent process includes giving a complete disclosure of the potential risks and benefits of a treatment.