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And I stand by my "ridiculous, insulting statement" because, as you have twice stated, you are "usually very much on the side of the parental rights people" - except where you know best based on your "medical background." As you "have some knowledge about the subject," the desires and decisions of those primarily affected by the treatment should be secondary. Please explain if I have misrepresented your stated opinion.

While I grant that my statement may have been insulting, I ask that you point out the specific "ridiculous" point.

And one more thing: some of us have an all too intimate knowledge of this subject from a point of view other than that of the medical profession. That experience (and a fundamental acknowledgment of personal liberty) is the basis of my opinion.

I guess the reason I said it was ridiculous is that your statement made me sound like someone who tries to run everybody else's lives. (The only people's lives that I have ever attempted to run are those of my twin daughters, and I haven't been able to do that since they were 14. Now that they are almost 26, I don't even try!) If you really knew me, which you obviously can not from reading one post on this blog, you would know that I do not claim to want to make decisions for other people. In fact, I don't believe that the court should "order" these parents to subject their son to chemotherapy if they choose to reject it. It's just that he has had only one treatment so far and the treatment for early stage HD is so successful. I was just thinking as a parent who would not want to lose their child to a cancer that is very "curable". If it were non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or some other type of cancer that does not respond to chemo and the child would be made to suffer needlessly, I would feel differently.

Not only do I have a medical background, I have a personal story that influences my opinion. The daughter of some good friends of mine was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at about the same age as Abraham. She is now a young woman in her thirties who is married and the mother of a beautiful little girl.