Court Orders Parents to Get Medical Treatment for Their Child

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The basic story is the parents of a 13-year old boy decided to treat their son, who has cancer (Hodgkin's lymphoma specifically) using "natural medicine", favored by the Native American Nemenhah Band which apparently involves taking nutrional supplements and regular visits to a "sweat lodge" (the article linked does not detail exactly what a "sweat lodge" is or does, although I assume it involves sweating).

A court has ruled that they must seek conventional medical treatment - including chemotherapy and radiation - that has a greater than 90% success rate in curing this disease. Doctors claim that without the treatment, his survival chances are about 5%.

You can read the full story here.

So, should courts be allowed to force parents, against their will, to treat their children using medically proven treatments?

 

Can I hear an AMEN BROTHER! AMEN! Short answer, yes.

 

Yes. If that child dies because the parents refused to give adequate, proven to work medical treatment then they should be done for neglect!

 

I see no difference between failure to provide adequate medical treatment and severe neglect -- the latter of which allows the state to remove the child from the custody of the parents. Personally, I think the judge should have taken the child from his parents because it is highly unlikely the parents (even with court order) will provide the necessary medical treatment.

The right of a parent to raise a child as he or she sees fit ends when the choices of the parent endanger the child.

 

I think we have a winner.

 

Where do you draw the line on when the governent can step in? What if the religion of the family does not accept the medical treatment? Maybe due to the ingredients of the medicine or if they believe in "Faith Healing"?(which i think is ludricris)... and what is specifically "Endangering" your child? As alot of people have different opinions on this matter. I can see a lot of grey areas here... myself, i say take the kid away from his parents, as i think they have to be, literally, crazy to deny their child treatment. I am just posing the question...

 

yes the court should. the safety of the child comes before the parents wishes, if not, the child is no longer treated as a human being but as an object. personally I don't see any grey areas here, as soon as the parents wishes comes before the well-being of the child, the court should step in.

 

Unfortunately, the reality is that conventional medicine (at least in the US) is not even close to up-to-date on herbal medicine, even where studies have been performed and published. Mild depression is frequently referred to a psychiatrist where expensive and powerful (and not entirely safe) anti-depressants are prescribed when simple vitamin supplements may well work just as well if not better (Vitamin B, Ginseng, and St. John's Wort, for example).

If serious medical reviews have been performed on the alternative methods, then the courts have material to work with and should make a decision, however if there has been no scientific review or testing of the alternative methods, they are simply comparing a known to an unknown, and are in little better position to make an informed decision than the parents.

Overall, I think issues like this have to be handled with the utmost care. Unfortunately, the conventional medical procedure prescribed is not without risks of its own.

 

That's fair enough and yes, medical treatments carry their own risks. However, when it's known that the netural treatment has a 5% success rate as opposed to the 90% success rate the the medical treatment has then the decision should be a simple one

 

I'm not sure, Silvery, but I got the impression that the 5% was a general statistic for odds of survival based off of receiving no treatment at all, with the doctors assuming this alternative method will do nothing. If real studies have been performed, and the 5% is based off of them, then that's something else.

 

The grey areas are in the situations when there are no absolutes that the court-ordered treatment will work and also in the intrusion of one's beliefs. How can you know for certain that what the parents want is not going to help their children? Where is the line drawn? At a 85-15% probability of a cure or a 60-40% probability? It's a matter of opinion. I am not religous in the least and think modern science is definitely the way to go, but i also believe in the rights of the parents. That's why i believe there are many grey areas.

 

At what point does the "right of the parent" outweigh the right of the child?

 

Have you guys ever read the possible side effects on any medication you take? some 'proven' medications can be quite dangerous.

what if the court orders treatment, and the child still dies? what if a situation arises where the parents argue that the method of treatment they chose may have worked, but as a result of the court order this wasnt allowed to happen, and the courts decision doomed the child?

 

It's not quite as clear cut as it seems, If you read the story the boy himself says he believes the chemo will kill him &

& further into the article

So does the state FORCE treatment on someone that does not want it?
Where do your rights as an individual end & the states rights take over?

 

A thirteen year old? Hell yes.

 

Yes, the desires of the child are, here, immaterial. The child also believes he is not ill, when in fact he is seriously ill.

 

I'm glad the doctor disagrees with you.

 

A couple of points here. I don't think this really is a case of religious beliefs as some seem to be saying. The treatment the parents were intending to do was from a native american medicine man. The article states that they are Roman Catholic. There's nothing in Catholicism that I'm aware of that says it's good to get treated by a medicine man, or that chemo and radiation treatments are bad.

For those saying that alternative treatments sometimes work, and that the kid may get better or die either way, all I have to say is put yourself (or a loved one) in the shoes of the child. Say you take your kid/spouse/parent/loved one to a doctor and they get diagnosed with cancer. The one bright spot the doctor tells you, is that this is a highly treatable form of cancer, and with aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments, over 90% of patients get better. Is there really a sound arguement for you to respond, "Thanks doc, but I'm gonig to go with the medicine man down the street."

 

Aldeth, that very much depends on what else you know. There has been a lot of work by non-conventional medicine in herbal treatments for various forms of cancer. Most are bunk, true, but there has been some progress, including some that have been shown to work better in conjunction with chemo/radiation than either it or chemo/radiation work alone. Unfortunately, here in the US at least, the doctor probably won't know squat about any of those.

The way you use the term 'medicine man' tells me you probably think it is bunk simply because it isn't being administered by someone with a medical degree. That is simply not the case.

One thing I noticed in reading the article is that the judge didn't actually order the child to undergo chemo, but rather ordered testing to see if the alternative method was working and, if it weren't, THEN to undergo chemo. While I find it unlikely that the judge has allowed enough time for either treatment to have any impact, at least (s)he is recognizing the possibility.