There are several related stories in the news in the last few days.
13-year-old Daniel Hauser has Hodgkin’s, and his mom is refusing chemo in favor of natural/alternative treatments. She and Daniel are on the run. Supposedly Daniel has refused treatment, but other reports say he’s learning-disabled and may not understand what’s involved.
11-year-old Madeline Neumann of Wisconsin died last year of complications of untreated diabetes, while her mother prayed over her. Mom’s on trial for second-degree homicide; dad’s trial is coming.
14-year-old Alexander Draper of South Carolina was just found; his mother took him and fled a court appearance over neglect and endangerment charges stemming from Alexander weighing 555 pounds.
Finally, here’s a Newsweek link that states things a little better than I can.
Where do you draw the line? When should The System step in to protect a child? Certainly Alex Draper has issues, and Madeline Neumann could have been saved. But what of Daniel Hauser? His mother is supposedly seeking the counsel of a man who claims to have cured his own case of Hodgkin’s through natural remedies. Should she have the right to seek alternative treatment over proven medical therapies? The treatment she’s fighting has a 91% success rate.
There’s a group wants faith-based exceptions to medical treatment overturned, or at least more limited than they currently are. The founder is a former Christian Scientist who lost her child to spinal meningitis in 1977 after turning to CS practitioners. (The website comes down pretty hard on CS in general.)
I’m torn on this one, quite honestly. For something like cancer, where we really don’t know all that much about some types, and the side-effects of the cure are almost as bad as the disease, should The System step in? When? How long should you give an alternative or faith-based treatment before expecting results? The concern though is that sometimes, the alternative treatments can be just as dangerous as the accepted medical treatments, or the parents aren’t getting good information, relying on just one or two websites that probably talk about the conspiracy between Big Pharma and Doctors.
For the record, I have seen some medical conditions seemingly cured through prayer: multiple uterine cysts that disappeared; a cancer sent into remission before medical treatment was begun. I believe in the power of prayer.
As a parent, I’d move heaven and earth to save my kids. But. This will be a step to the outside for some of you, but what if I’m convinced that God has told me to stop the conventional treatments, and let Him work? Who am I responsible to at that point? And yeah, there’s been one time in my life that I know God spoke to me – I literally felt His touch.
Here’s one more angle to consider. There are some who say a 13-year-old child should be allowed to consent to a particular medical procedure without the parents having any say in the matter. So should 13-year-old children be allowed to give/withdraw consent for any medical procedure, or just some? Which ones?
Share your thoughts!