Posted on 07/24/2006 9:33:39 PM PDT by freespirited
A 16-year-old Virginia boy who suffers from Hodgkin's disease has been told by a state judge he must report to a hospital this week and accept treatment deemed necessary by his doctors. The boy and his parents have chosen to pursue alternative treatment. It consists of a sugar-free, organic diet and herbal supplements supervised by a clinic in Mexico.
On July 21, juvenile court Judge Jesse E. Demps ruled that the boy's parents, Jay and Rose Cherrix of Chincoteague, were neglectful and that they must continue to share custody of their son, Starchild Abraham Cherrix, with the Accomack County Department of Social Services.
I have heard Cherrix interviewed on the radio and he sounds intelligent, articulate, reasonable and capable of making such a major decision. Cherrix says three months of chemotherapy left him nauseas and weak and he prefers not to repeat that type of treatment. That a court would deny Cherrix and his parents such a choice prompted the family attorney, John Stepanovich, to say: "I want to caution all parents of Virginia: Look out, because Social Services may be pounding on your door next when they disagree with the decision you've made about the health care of your child."
In an age when we continue to debate "a woman's right to choose" when it comes to a girl aborting her baby and we are told that it is the girl's body and no one else should make decisions affecting it, a boy has no such rights. A girl can be given birth control by the school nurse and even abortion information without her parents knowledge or consent, but a boy can be prohibited from making decisions that affect his life and body. At least the courts are consistent. They forbid parental involvement in either case. In some states, though, parents are held responsible for their kids' illegal and anti-social behavior. Why is it that parents supposedly have power to keep their kids from committing crimes, but can be denied power when it comes to their child's health and welfare?
If a young child (say 10, or younger) is unduly influenced by parents who are members of a religion that teaches that faith alone can heal, or prohibits blood transfusions, then the state has an interest in stepping in to protect the child until he, or she, is old enough to make an informed choice. But in this case, the informed one appears to be Cherrix, who says he has studied his options, experienced the treatment given by his doctors and doesn't want anymore of it. He prefers "alternative medicine." That should be his and his parents' right to determine, not a social worker and a court.
The attitude of the state and culture toward the value of human life is in constant flux. Like the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, it is up one day and down the next. Some want to use embryonic stem cells for research into all sorts of afflictions and diseases, though no clinical tests have proved they are effective and stem cells from placentas and other sources, which cause no harm to human life, are available. Life in the womb - indeed life emerging from the womb - may be destroyed at any time and for any reason. There is pressure at the other end of life to euthanize the elderly and handicapped when they become "burdensome" to family members or "too costly" to the state.
Attorney Stepanovich says Cherrix's parents will appeal the ruling this week. Absent any additional information that has not been made public, which might prove neglectfulness and bad parenting, Cherrix and his parents should decide what is best for them and not the state of Virginia.
A government that can step on parental rights and force a fully informed young adult to ingest certain drugs or undertake a certain therapy can surely do the same to an adult. Stated differently, a government that prohibits persons from ingesting certain drugs can force persons to ingest certain drugs.
I had a friend who had colon cancer,had chemo, got rid of cancer,then had breast cancer,got a large dose of chemo to get rid of that and the chemo sent her into alzheimers...The cancer????she was cancer free but died after 3 years of alzheimers......had a co-worker who had cancer,had chemo that gave her a stroke and they found another type of cancer in her..She has since died..One was 65,the other 45.....
I am usually very much on the side of the parental rights crowd, but, in this case, I must disagree. Children of 16 often think they know everything, but this young boy apparently does not realize that he may be signing his own death warrant by putting his faith in a Mexican clinic that could be a fraud. I am a devout Christian and I believe that God can heal this young man, but I also believe that He guides the hands of the doctors and researchers who provide medical treatment for conditions such as Hodgkin's. There are things that can be done to alleviate the side effects of the chemotherapy. With the established success rate of the treatment, the life of this young man is certainly worth some temporary discomfort.
True. And if you're consistent to principle you'll agree that the common denominator is that the government initiates force in all of the above. In all instances the initiated force causes harm either by forcing the drug or the fine and-or/imprisonments imposed by the government for not abiding it's ruling/laws. A person that takes a harmful drug is forced into fines and/or prison. A person doesn't take a harmful drug is forced into fines and/or prison.
You probably don't know that standard operating procedure for the FDA is to let five, six, ten or more people suffer or die from lack of medication or therapy rather than grant FDA approval for a drug or therapy that causes one person to suffer or die from the drug or therapy.
It is in the self-interest of the FDA to not have the blemish of approving a drug that kills people, despite how many more lives it saves. That is irrational and a crime to let people die when they could have lived. Just as it is in the government's self interest to not allow the FDA to approve medical marijuana despite not even one death ever caused by marijuana. That too is irrational, a crime to impose suffering on persons that could live without the suffering.
More on violating the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness see post 26.
You probably don't know that standard operating procedure for the FDA is to let five, six, ten or more people suffer or die from lack of medication or therapy rather than grant FDA approval for a drug or therapy that causes one person to suffer or die from the drug or therapy.
It is in the self-interest of the FDA to not have the blemish of approving a drug that kills people, despite how many more lives it saves. That is irrational and a crime to let people die when they could have lived. Just as it is in the government's self interest to not allow the FDA to approve medical marijuana despite not even one death ever caused by marijuana. That too is irrational, a crime to impose suffering on persons that could live without the suffering.
More on violating the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness see post 26.
My mistake. Post 27 was meant for smorton.
Awesome tag line. Worth posting.
That's ridiculous. There are plenty of conservatives who had hippie parents just as there are plenty of liberals who had conservative parents. It is called "rebellion" and teenage kids do this.
That he chooses "holistic" medicine means nothing about his upbringing. He had already given chemo a shot and it was a horrible experience that did nothing to cure his disease. From what I've read, he's probably not going to live to be 20 regardless of the treatment he chooses. Why not try something else?
This has nothing to do with the government/FDA. I personally know several people who were cured of HD with treatment regimens that have been showing success for years. One is the daughter of good friends of mine who was diagnosed at about the same age as Abraham. She is now a young woman in her thirties and is married with a beautiful baby girl.
I think this poor kid's parents are jackasses, but sometimes the law must allow people to be jackasses.
The treatment for childhood Hodgkin's disease does not "kill your immune system". If it did, every child treated for Hodgkin's would require a bone marrow transplant.
Chemotherapy temporarily suppresses the function of the immune system by killing the more rapidly dividing cells in the body. Fortunately, the immune system is more resistant to this effect than cancer cells and, in the end, a success leaves the patient with a live immune system and a dead cancer.
Putting a hip to ankle cast for a broken thigh bone on a patient completely takes away the ability to walk while the cast is on and the the leg loses a significant amount of bone and muscle mass but that does that mean that putting on the cast is equivalent to "killing your leg".
If you are going to debate your points, at least do it without falsifying what is actually going on.
There is nothing "traditional" about modern medicine. It is constantly changing every day as new data shows what works and what doesn't. What does not work is discarded. What works is kept until something better comes along. The only constant thing is change.
"Traditional" medicine is doing something simply because some Mexican Indian tribe has been doing it for 1,000 years and you claim it works because they told you so even though you have absolutely no outcome data to support your claims.
The success rate for the current medical treatment of childhood Hodgkin's disease is over 90%.
What therapy would you recommend for childhood Hodgkin's disease and what is the documented success rate of your treatment recommendation?
While I grant that my statement may have been insulting, I ask that you point out the specific "ridiculous" point.
And one more thing: some of us have an all too intimate knowledge of this subject from a point of view other than that of the medical profession. That experience (and a fundamental acknowledgment of personal liberty) is the basis of my opinion.
This has nothing to do with the government/FDA.
I realize not this, but rather, you and your opinion based on anecdotal evidence has nothing to do with the government/FDA. So long as you know that the government is violating the parental rights of their 16-year-old son and their cognizant decision.
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