Starchild Gets Earthly Medicine

A few days ago, a judge ordered that Starchild Abraham Cherrix receive traditional chemotherapy against his will and the will of his parents. Abraham is a 16 year old from Virginia with Hodgkin's. He wishes to receive alternative treatment in a Mexican clinic, because the first round of chemo he endured was too painful and draining. He believes the alternative treatment will cure him. Right.

The judge has received a lot of shit for his decision to force Abraham into conventional therapy against his will. The only guy who seems to be in favor of the decision is Orac. In his post responding to the blogger response to the ruling, he poses a few questions for those who oppose the decision. As my instinct says the decision is wrong, I want to look at those questions (and probably, in the end, concede that the ruling was the right one):

1. If Abraham and his parents chose crystal therapy or, like Christian Scientists, decided that they would use prayer alone to "cure" Abraham's lymphoma, would you be as adamant in your belief that the state should not intervene. If not, why not?

Yes, I see no difference between the alternative treatment he plans to use and truly bizarre forms of treatment. As far as I'm concerned, this is about the right of an underage patient and his parents to refuse treatmet. I'm assuming he's not using public funds for his alternative treatment, because in that case the ruling would be much more obvious.

2. If Abraham were 14 years old would you still think that the state has no business intervening in his care? (Consider the case of Katie Wernecke, which is often mentioned in the same discussions as Abraham's.) What about if Abraham were 12 years old? 10 years old? 8 years old? In other words, is the right of parents to decide medical care for their children absolute, and, if it is not, what are the specific situations in which the state is justified in intervening to overrule the decision of the parents?

This is really the key question here. It's also why I think, in the end, Orac is right. I do think Abraham is old enough to make his own decisions. If he wants to slowly kill himself (really, why is suicide illegal?) that should be his perogative. Unfortunately, whereas I think the age of consent for pretty much everything should be 15 or 16, the law thinks it should be 18. They err on the side of caution/dickishness. I disagree with our cutoff, but we need a cutoff. We can't evaluate every case on an individual basis and decide whether the candidate is mature enough to sign his own permission slips. So, before he's 18, we can't assume Abraham is giving consent to be killed. In that case, the parents are guilty of neglect, abuse, whatever. So, with annoyance at the age of consent, I concede that this means the judge was probably right.

3. Are there any circumstances you can envision in which the state should intervene to direct the medical care of a child against the parents' will? Please give a specific hypothetical example of such a case and explain how that is different from that of Abraham Cherrix.

This is another good question. The obvious issue is the child's consent. I'm sure many of the same people who are objecting to the decision would be equally upset if the judge ruled the other way, but Abraham did not agree with his parents' wishes. In other words, if the child desperately wants to live, but his parents are forcing him into slow suicide, this would be pretty bad. But, as discussed in post 3, the child can't actually consent. Therefore, any case that could be considered abuse--anything that's bad for the kid, independed of whether he wants it, because his wants have no legal standing--is cause for government intervention.

4. For those who think that the Hoxsey treatment is a valid medical option for the treatment of relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma, please provide valid scientific and/or clinical evidence that it is any better than doing nothing. Testimonials do not count.

N/A, as is the case with #5.

So there it is. It's a boring answer perhaps: Kids should be able to sign off earlier, but since they can't the judge was justified. All right, Abraham. It's going to hurt. I'm sorry, but maybe because of it you'll live to see a day when you can legally kill yourself slowly.