A judge ruled today that 16 year old Abraham Cherrix does not have to have chemotherapy for his cancer, something the teen and his parents do not want.
I guess I don’t understand. The boy’s parents agreed with his decision to not undergo another round of chemo (plus radiation) and instead to treat the cancer with herbs and an organic diet. While the teen is not an adult, his parents are. So how did the government get in the middle of this? Seems that once the teen decided not to take the doctor-recommended route, the doctors turned the family in to the Department of Social Services. Last May, the parents were charged with neglect and Social Services was awarded joint custody of the boy. It was Social Services’ attorneys who pursued the court order to force Cherrix to do chemo.
I don’t know how Social Services was able to convince the court that the parents were neglectful of their son. Was is purely on the basis that they agreed with his decision to try an alternative treatment? If so, that’s lame.
Government needs to stop at the doors of our homes. Getting in the middle of what must have been a difficult family decision is just plain wrong. It was wrong in the Terry Schivo case and it is wrong here.
Either we live in a society where we are free to make our own decisions or we don’t. I certainly hope it is the former and not the latter.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Ive been following this story and I’m so glad you posted on it.
I’ve seen alternative treatments do wonders for people and animals both…of course, the corporate controlled pharmaceutical industry and our own American Medical Society fight these tooth and nail….our current health care system is more profit driven today and corporations rule…so health care in our country and personal choice is declining. They also lobby D.C. all the time to cut lawsuit limits down to 1 million dollars (a pittance for them) so they can continue making profits at the expense of quality patient care.
It’s very interesting that some of the right wing bloggers are trying to frame this as a partisan issue, with comparisons to the outrage over the Terri Schiavo and Hugh Finn cases. Given the propensity of “social conservatives” to intrude on private family decisions in general, why do you suppose they have singled out this case to champion?
Is it just opportunism, based on the erroneous belief that progressives aren’t following this story?
Either we live in a society where we are free to make our own decisions or we don’t. Exactly. That’s why this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and why I am puzzled by the sudden interest in family privacy by individuals who otherwise feel entitled to regulate every intimate detail of other people’s lives, and even define what a family can be.
I have to think that there is just rank opportunism involved, since James Young has removed my comment to his blog pointing out that I had in fact referenced this story on Equality Loudoun. Apparently, that fact was inconvenient to his theory, as is this post.
There hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to this story in the blogsphere and most of it has been from the right; however, that doesn’t make it a partisan issue. The bottom line is that it’s just not right for the government to interfere.
Oh – I checked Janes Young’s site and your post is there.
Kilo at Spark it Up! and Doug Mataconis at Below the Beltway wrote about it.
Viv, I agree with you. Your post is right on the mark.
Jim – which is scarier: that I agree with you (a conservative) or that you agree with me (a liberal)? 😆
The thing is that stopping government from interfering in people’s lives (to the extent that they cause no one else any harm) is just plain common sense.
Vivian – that one is my second post, James censored the first one. No, this certainly is not a liberal/conservative issue. I initially learned about this case from Doug Mataconis, who posted about it two weeks ago. It was his post that finally motivated me to write my “Nanny State” post, something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile.
It just disgusts me that someone could be selectively appalled at this intrusion and at the same time demand the right to dictate to other families whose decisions they don’t like in the name of being “conservative.” Like you said, we either have a right to privacy or we don’t. They can’t have it both ways.
Aha. I guess anybody can do whatever they want but …
No, they can’t have it both ways.