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Should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

So, should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

  • Total voters
    49
Jerry said:
We're not talking about unfit parents....are we?

What did I miss? Did the court revoke the parent's rights?

I apologize if this is the case.
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In this case, the courts revoked the parents' right to make medical decisions for their child, as they should.

Jerry said:
You're absolutely correct: if the parent's have been deemed "unfit" by the court then their rights are gone, as is their say, and the new court appointed guardian can make any decision in their place.
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Laws on child protection differ from one state to another. Parents don't necessarily have to be declared "unfit" (if that term even exists in a legal sense in all states) in order for the court to take away some of their rights when they do something stupid. The court is essentially saying that they're unfit to make medical decisions, while still allowing them to otherwise raise their child however they see fit.
 
Jerry said:
I know, allowing people to choose their own fate is inhumane, but I am an Evil Conservative.
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But they are NOT choosing their own fate. They're choosing their child's fate.
 
Kandahar said:
But they are NOT choosing their own fate. They're choosing their child's fate.
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Some one has to. I tend to trust parents more than the government.
 
A Minnesota judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for the mother of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy who is refusing treatment for his cancer, after neither she nor the boy showed up for a court appearance.

"It is imperative that Daniel receive the attention of an oncologist as soon as possible," wrote Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg in an order to "apprehend and detain."

"His best interests require it," Rodenberg wrote.

The judge had scheduled the hearing to review an X-ray ordered by the court to assess whether Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma was worsening.

The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, did appear at Tuesday's hearing, where he testified that he last saw the mother, Colleen Hauser, at the family's farm on Monday night, when she told him she was going to leave "for a time."

He said he did not know where they had gone.

During the hearing, Dr. James Joyce testified he saw the boy and his mother on Monday at his office. He said the boy had "an enlarged lymph node" near his right clavicle and that the X-ray showed "significant worsening" of a mass in his chest. In addition, the boy complained of "extreme pain" at the site where a port had been inserted to deliver an initial round of chemotherapy. The pain was "most likely caused by the tumor or mass pressing on the port," testified Joyce, who called the X-ray "fairly dramatic" evidence that the cancer was worsening.

Rodenberg ordered custody of the boy transferred to Brown County Family Services and issued a contempt order for the mother.
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Medical ethicists say parents generally have a legal right to make decisions for their children, but there is a limit.
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"You have a right, but not an open-ended right," Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said last week. "You can't compromise the life of your child."
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Find the bitch, lock her up and force the treatment on the boy. Sometimes tough love needs to be used. Save the boy's life and then enjoy the opportunity to argue the manner it was saved.
 
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Redress said:
Some one has to. I tend to trust parents more than the government.
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The government has an interest in keeping children alive, something that can't be said for some parents. I'd like to see this kid kept alive until he's 18; if he wants to get cancer and die as an adult, so be it, but his parents don't have the right to kill him. What if he had a brain tumor and his mom wanted to crack his skull with a baseball bat to get it out?
 
ADK_Forever said:
Find the bitch, lock her up and force the treatment on the boy. Sometimes tough love needs to be used. Save the boy's life and then enjoy the opportunity to argue the manner it was saved.
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If the kid dies after this latest turn of events, the mother should be tried for 2nd degree murder/manslaughter.
 
Edify_Always_In_All_Ways said:
The government has an interest in keeping children alive, something that can't be said for some parents. I'd like to see this kid kept alive until he's 18; if he wants to get cancer and die as an adult, so be it, but his parents don't have the right to kill him. What if he had a brain tumor and his mom wanted to crack his skull with a baseball bat to get it out?
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I understand what you are saying, it just frames the issue differently than I do. To me, there are a few places the government just does not belong. As an example, the government does not belong in my bedroom, as what I do with another consenting adult or myself is no ones business but mine. Likewise, I don't think the government has a place in the doctors office as I am making medical decisions for me or my family. This does mean that bad things are going to happen on occasion as a result, but nothing is ever actually free.
 
For this particular case....

The parents are loons and are going to get their boy killed. Would we allow them to choose to let their kid play on the freeway? Hell, he's got a five percent chance of getting hit by a truck, it must be okay if the parents say so, right?

It might be different if "alternative medicine" had any factual or scientific foundation. Exactly how well does AM treat lymphoma? What's the remission rate? Compare that to modern medical science and it's success against lymphoma, which was pegged at 95% in the OP's article.

The government has the duty to protect the citizen against harm from others, and that includes harm to children by their ignorant or deluded parents, if necessary.
 
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Jerry said:
That's their right.
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No.

Their right is to choose their own fate.

Their duty is to ensure their child gets the best medical care available.

If they're too damn stupid to make the right choices, and it's clear they fall into this category, then the state's duty is to remove the endangered child from their care to ensure he gets the treatment needed.
 
Jerry said:
You're assuming motives for a person not in the situation and thus isn't making the decision :lol:

Good debate tactic there, wow I'm convinced :roll:

I'm not choosing death for any of my children, I'm so far giving support to parent's who want to choose a less painful death for their child.

If it were me, than since I'm not a member of this Native American group, I might make a different decision. I might choose to put my child through the pain out of the Christian ideal that you always choose life.

My argument on this thread is that the state has not demonstrated a compelling interest to be involved at all. You seem to keep ignoring that point.
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I disagree. I think the state has a compelling interest because both mother and child are deluded. They do not believe the cancer is growing, despite medical evidence that it has. They do not believe the kid's chances of dying if untreated are high- which they are. And they believe magic water is gonna heal him - which it ain't.

They have made the decisions they are making in a deluded state of mind. When you have no grip on reality it compels the courts to make mentally sound decisions for you.
 
Redress said:
I understand what you are saying, it just frames the issue differently than I do. To me, there are a few places the government just does not belong. As an example, the government does not belong in my bedroom, as what I do with another consenting adult or myself is no ones business but mine. Likewise, I don't think the government has a place in the doctors office as I am making medical decisions for me or my family. This does mean that bad things are going to happen on occasion as a result, but nothing is ever actually free.
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There are a few places kids don't belong. Kids don't belong in cemeteries, and if that means bad things (like the arrest of certain parents) happens on occasion, I couldn't care less. What gives these parents the right to kill their kid? Could the kid's uncle do it? What about an adopted parent or a grandparent? Why don't children have a right to life that supersedes the right of their parents to freedom of religion or whatever crap lets them do this?
 
Jerry said:
That's their right.
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Absolutely wrong. A parent only has limited control over what they can legally do with a child, a child is not their property, a child has rights and they have responsibilities toward the child. A parent cannot choose to starve the child, a parent cannot choose to physically, sexually or emotionally abuse a child, etc. Religious rights do not excuse what is otherwise abuse.
 
There are assumptions being made here about what treatment is best. My problem with the whole thing is that the state has the final word on what treatments it thinks are "legitimate." This latest case, and I don't know all the details, involves a native american tribe whose current chief apparently cured himself using traditional herbals and other methods. Did the judge get a medical degree and do lab studies of the effectiveness of the two treatments in question? Think not.
 
LowRevs said:
There are assumptions being made here about what treatment is best. My problem with the whole thing is that the state has the final word on what treatments it thinks are "legitimate." This latest case, and I don't know all the details, involves a native american tribe whose current chief apparently cured himself using traditional herbals and other methods. Did the judge get a medical degree and do lab studies of the effectiveness of the two treatments in question? Think not.
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I understand were you are coming from but I have to say that most of that herbal healing crap is just that crap.

As long as there is no documented evidence that suggests that it is actually able to cure anything then not seeking real medical treatment for a child should be considered abuse.
 
LowRevs said:
There are assumptions being made here about what treatment is best. My problem with the whole thing is that the state has the final word on what treatments it thinks are "legitimate." This latest case, and I don't know all the details, involves a native american tribe whose current chief apparently cured himself using traditional herbals and other methods. Did the judge get a medical degree and do lab studies of the effectiveness of the two treatments in question? Think not.
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No, but the state called in doctors as key witnesses who DO have medical degrees and HAVE done lab studies (or at least are able to understand the lab studies that others have done) of the effectiveness of treatments.
 
LowRevs said:
There are assumptions being made here about what treatment is best.
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No. There are statisical and scientific studies done to show the chemotherapy has a high remission rate, and no studies to show the magic and weed treatment preferred by the parents are any more efficacious than doing absolutely nothing.

LowRevs said:
My problem with the whole thing is that the state has the final word on what treatments it thinks are "legitimate."
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All the faith healers need to do is establish a scientific and statistical background for the "treatments" they propose, and the state will grant them due consideration.

LowRevs said:
This latest case, and I don't know all the details, involves a native american tribe whose current chief apparently cured himself using traditional herbals and other methods.
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This is called anecdotal evidence and completely irrelevant when not supported by statistical studies.

LowRevs said:
Did the judge get a medical degree and do lab studies of the effectiveness of the two treatments in question? Think not.
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No. The judge has a law degree. And the question is a legal question, ie, "should the state intervene to save a minor child from parental incompetence", and the judge ruled "yes".
 
If you believe both George Bush and Barrack Obama made only perfect decisions can you believe the government should have the final life and death health decisions of your child.

I also believe if the government takes that degree of control of a child over the parent, the government has to take care of that child economically and in terms of health for the rest of the child's life however long it is even if to 100 years old. Who controls, pays.
 
Should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?
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I think it depends partially on the situation.

If we're talking about a situation where the child will never be able to have a decent quality of life, I think the parents should be able to make that decision.

If we're talking about a situation where the parents are refusing treatment for religious reasons, even if the child could fully recover with treatment, then the parents have absolutely no right to refuse.

Children aren't property for parents to practice their religious beliefs on.
 
FallingPianos said:
I think it depends partially on the situation.

If we're talking about a situation where the child will never be able to have a decent quality of life, I think the parents should be able to make that decision.

If we're talking about a situation where the parents are refusing treatment for religious reasons, even if the child could fully recover with treatment, then the parents have absolutely no right to refuse.

Children aren't property for parents to practice their religious beliefs on.
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So for you its an anti-religious thing.
 
Can't we have a separate list for liberals, I hate being on the same list as ADK. :mrgreen:
 
I'm just glad the kid is back home. I hope that all involved can unite in doing what is best for this young man now, so that he can focus on beating his cancer.
 
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