That probably results from the First Amendment. That gives higher protection to religious beliefs than it does to personal beliefs.
Over 7 years ago, my cousin’s youngest son was diagnosed with one of the rarest forms of leukemia at the age of four. He had neuroblastoma in the brain and 5 tumors on his spine. He wasn’t expected to live past 6 years old. Thankfully, he will be turning 11 this year, has no new tumors. This was possible heavy chemo, stem cell surgery, countless biopsy needles, CAT scans, MRIs, MRAs, rushed to hospital for every fever. Of course, he’s still on experimental chemo to keep the cancer at bay. If he lives to be 17, it will be miraculous.
Now here comes Little Miss Whiny Pants Cassandra who is diagnosed with a cancer that’s over 85% curable with people living well into their 80s after treatment. She won’t have to go through even 10% of what my cousin’s kid has had. Her chemo won’t be life long like his, she won’t lose 50% of her hearing or her eyesight. She’s looking at a few months of discomfort, nausea, etc. If my cousin and his wife lived near this dope, they’d kidnap her and tie her to the hospital bed. And so would I.
Does she realize that if she DOES NOT treat this, she WILL die and very uncomfortably before she’s 20? Does she realize she may be throwing away maybe 60 years of existence? I don’t care if she’s 18 and can “make her own decisions”. Maybe we need a new council-- the stupidity council, specializing in dumb-ass teens who think they’re able to make decisions. Sure, you’re allowed to make your own decisions at 18, but not necessarily sound ones.
I read her essay. Well written. When I got the end I thought, “Very nice, sweetie. Now get the fucking chemo and stop being dumb.” Worried about letting poison in her body? Benzoyl Peroxide is poison to the skin. Does she use that for teen zits, or does she proudly display her ugly pimples reminding her peers that it’s her decision to deny facial care? Has someone sat down with her and told her that she can have her own family with children and a career and a husband but ONLY if she takes care of herself? Because taking this poison IS taking care of herself.
Her parents are stupid as hell for supporting this little “Oh you’re forcing me and it’s my decision” bullshit. Her mom strikes me as a looney anti-vaxer or just a government fearmonger that still fears Big Brother. :rolleyes:
This is one of those cases where our arbitrary line in the sand policing is both on-its-face stupid and a massive boon. Cassandra is an idiot for refusing treatment, and if we can justify forcing it on her via legal means, then there’s not really a big problem here. After all, she is still a minor, and the issue here is clearly not one of “I understand the issue well but simply don’t want to” - the courts attested as much.
Dingdingding. What we have here is a case of someone being suicidally stupid. Thankfully, that someone is not yet old enough to suffer the consequences thereof in peace.
Because her mother was deemed incapable of taking care of her charge, and rightfully so.
Because we assume past a certain point that people are adults and capable of rational decision-making for themselves. This wouldn’t be an issue if Cassandra was a legal adult. She isn’t, and we as a society have collectively come to the opinion that if a parent is letting their child die of a preventable, curable illness, it constitutes criminal neglect and must be addressed. This is absolutely justified.
Hell, I’d go so far as to say that it wouldn’t be so unreasonable in cases like this, where conventional treatment is wildly successful and not getting conventional treatment means almost certain painful death, that it would be justifiable to force adults to undergo treatment. Well, if we had centralized health care and it wasn’t also a financial issue, that is. They’re clearly scientifically illiterate (ignorant), stupid, or suicidal - in any case, they ought to be protected from themselves.
On a side note, I think The Atlantic’s headline captures the issue pretty well: “You Must Be This Old to Die”.
No, I don’t think so.
One of the issues mentioned in news articles is references to Cassandra telling doctors that she was refusing chemotherapy because her mom would be upset. (Apparently the lawyers brought this up on oral argument.) Choosing to die because your mom will be upset otherwise doesn’t strike me as somebody carefully weighing risks and benefits; Cassandra comes across as much younger than her calendar age, somebody who’s still more about pleasing mommy than thinking for oneself.
Her essay also glides over some really interesting details. She talks about her “stressful summer” of tests and evaluations, but neglects to mention that she missed at least four appointments over the course of the summer, BEFORE her diagnosis. Missing one appointment isn’t necessarily a big deal, but when the doctors are concerned, missing four shows a lack of attention at best, and that’s before she ever knew chemo was on the table.
Her essay also says, “My mom and I wanted to make sure my diagnosis was correct, so we agreed to seek a second opinion … Apparently, going for the second opinion and questioning doctors was considered ‘wasting time’ and ‘not necessary.’” She doesn’t mention that they never actually sought a second opinion.
When you think you’ve got cancer but aren’t sure yet, would not a mature person attempt to find out!?! She was diagnosed four months ago; neither she nor her mother has apparently made any attempt to identify an alternative treatment.
Again, these are actions of little kids. “If I pretend the vase isn’t broken, mommy won’t get mad.” “If I pretend I’m not sick, then I won’t be sick.”
I would like an update in a decade from her assuming she lives.
Maybe there’s some way they can put her cancer in storage for her after they cure her and she can have it back next year if she still wants it.
No, it’s not fascism. It is tyranny. There is no plank in any fascist creed that prescribes taking medical treatment against somebody’s will.
Part of the difficulty here is that the mother is living on some other planet, and she is the primary influence for her daughter.
A reporter asked the mother point blank, “Do you think your daughter will die if she doesn’t get the chemotherapy?,” and her response was “Absolutely not.” She was quoted in another article as saying that she would never let her daughter die. But she’s also discouraging her daughter from getting life-saving chemotherapy, not taking her to appointments, talking about wanting to look into alternative treatments without actually looking into alternative treatments, and generally appearing to be totally clueless that her encouraging her daughter to refuse chemotherapy is going to result in her daughter’s death. She seems to think that some effective, non-toxic regimen is going to drop out of the sky and cure her daughter. Or maybe she just thinks the cancer will go away by itself because she wants it to.
It seems harsh for the hospital to be limiting the daughter’s contact with the mother, but I can understand why they are doing that.
Based on my limited exposure it seems to me the mother is in denial, and she is the biggest influence on her daughter like you said.
I’ve known personally now of two elderly people with cancer who basically seemed to be on another planet not making rational decisions, and convinced they were going to cure their cancer by taking a shitload of a herb they think is magic. The big C brings out a lot of emotions it is easier to ignore.
(Marigold and Soursop if anyone was curious. :rolleyes:)
I understand all of the arguments. I am just trying to be consistent with regard to the following stances I have taken:
I do not think the state should intervene with a woman who is pregnant. I would find it repugnant if the state forced a pregnant woman to either keep or abort a fetus against her wishes.
I feel the same way regardless of her age although in especially young pregnant girls, I would understand if they deferred to their parents.
Additionally, I felt it was reprehensible when the state of Florida attempted to jump in during the Terri Schiavo case.
I have given both of the above serious thought and I feel good and consistent.
So why does the inconsistency of allowing the state to intervene here also feel like the right choice?
Because in the case of a pregnancy, the choice is not “take the treatment or die for no reason”. In the Terri Schiavo case, there was no issue of “if we don’t intervene she will die”. In this case, there absolutely is.
If a 17 year old wanted an abortion, some people would argue that she should be able to walk into the clinic and get one without even notifying her parents.
It’s her body, it is her choice.
I believe that. Even in this case where she is a moron.
I believe that parents should be able to decide what their children eat. However, if they decide that their children should eat nothing but 2 pieces of toast per day, I also support taking away their ability to decide. They have (by the decisions they’ve already made) proven themselves unable to make good decisions.
If a 17 year old chooses an abortion, there is nothing inherent in that decision that proves the young woman is unable to make good decisions. Eschewing a highly effective, permanent cure to a universally fatal disease is rather different.
Except that that abortion isn’t a life-or-death situation. This is the problem with the comparison. There are real pros and cons to be weighed in the case of an abortion, alongside the moralistic aspect. It really does come down to “does this person want to keep the child or not”. Both are absolutely fair, reasonable options, with consequences that are not totally clear on either side.
In this case… Well, there just aren’t. Either she takes the chemo and has a high chance of a full recovery, or she doesn’t, and dies a painful, relatively quick death. This is made even worse by her rationale in refusing, which was far more of a child’s decision than an adult’s. This is like a person throwing themselves in front of a train because they’re convinced it will send them to Narnia - either they’re suicidal or they’re idiots, and in either case we have a certain responsibility to protect them from themselves. Especially in the case of minors.
This case is closer akin to a pregnant woman believing that if she claims she’s NOT pregnant, there won’t be a squalling infant in nine months.
There’s not an inconsistency, I don’t believe. In any case where the woman or the guardian (in Schiavo’s case) appear to have considered the options, risks, and benefits, I respect their choice even if it’s not how I would have decided, or doesn’t reflect the weight I would have given those risks/benefits.
In cases where the party involved seems absolutely clueless about what’s actually at stake, though, somebody who has a clue has to consider and decide. Ordinarily in the case of a minor, that’s the parent; in the case of somebody in a coma or vegetative state, that’s the person with medical power-of-attorney.
Here, the mother has already been found unfit, in part because knowing her daughter was sick, she chose to skip multiple appointments. You can’t even make a rational decision if you don’t know what the problem is.
The courts were then asked to decide if Cassandra herself was competent to make the decision as a mature minor, and the courts concluded they had no evidence that she was. We won’t get to see any psychological assessments, etc., but reading a little between the lines, there seem to be, um, “issues” with Cassandra’s capacity. The calendar says she’s 17, but apparently she presents as much younger, and the courts decided she for whatever reason is not capable of grasping what’s at stake.
To make this analogous to the Schiavo case, you’d need to rewrite that case: what should have happened if the husband had failed or refused to talk to the doctors and care providers? Terri herself obviously could not decide; her husband, however, showed evidence that he had obtained medical assessments, he had talked to her doctors, and he understood what the doctors were telling him. Whether or not you agree with the decision he made, you can’t argue that it was a decision made utterly outside the bounds of modern medicine.
That’s not the situation with Cassandra.
For reasons I don’t want to get into this case is extremely personal to me. On one hand there’s benefit to picking an age of majority and sticking to it (and while we’re at it raising the driving age and lowering the drinking age just to stay consistent), but I’ve already decide I’d refuse chemotherapy no matter what the situation, and made that decision before I was 18, so I’m ambivalent about the whole issue.
So we are responsible for everyone’s life?
To some degree, yes. That’s why we mandate seat-belts in automobiles.
Err… Why? If it’s the best course of treatment, why would you do that?
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.