Starchild...interesting
Good. He shouldn't have been forced to go through chemo a second time. I hope they find something that will cure him.
How generous of the state to allow him a conditional go at his favored medical treatment.
It's the parents' choice what treatment to use since Abraham is under 18. Period. The county needs to butt out.
Interestingly enough, I didn't know the kid had the weird first name, but I heard him interviewed on Hannity and he's a very well-spoken young man. He and his parents researched the alternatives and mutually agreed on this particular type of treatment, and so far, it seems to be working--or at least he's not getting any worse.
Gabz, this is in your neck of the woods, isn't it?
}:-)4
He'll be dead in a year.
I agree the choice is his and his parents, no one else's. I'm sure if the treatment he is on now is showing no improvement they will make the wise decision to do radiation or chemo again should need be to save his life. For now leave the boy alone and let them seek help however they so choose.
Great news! I pray for Starchild's complete recovery.
If a 16 year old wanted an abortion, the left would citing the right to privacy and that 'nobody can tell you what to do with your own body.'
It seems abortion gets favored treatment when it comes to privacy.
If he survives: more power to him. If he doesn't: he will have made his contribution.
The cure rate for Hodgkins Disease is very high. Most patients survive the disease. Many patients who relapse after first line therapy are cured by second-line chemotherapy. So-called alternative therapies have no basis in science and are often peddled by frauds seeking to exploit the sick and desperate. I hope this person gets a second opinion from scientifically minded oncologists and receives proper care.
I think just having the stress of this nonsense over with will be good for his health.
This is a rare example of a case where government intervention worked well, with everyone behaving reasonably. It was not unreasonable of the social worker to seek court intervention, given the basic facts of the situation, nor was it unreasonable for the court to intervene. After all, while parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit, both common sense and the law recognize that this doesn't extend to the right to torture them or withhold obviously life-saving medical treatment or restrict them to bizarre diets which guarantee ill health long into adulthood and even risk death prior to reaching adulthood. Hopefully, everyone here can agree that the parents who killed their adoptive daughter by following a kook therapist's advice to subject her to "forced water drinking therapy" as "treatment" for "attachment disorder", had no right to pursue that method of child-rearing.
The court took all the information into account, giving proper weight to the right of parents to govern their children's lives within reason, and the natural (though not legal) right of a legal minor who is old enough and intelligent enough the situation to have a say in his own life-and-death decisions, and to the demonstrated sanity of both the parents and the child. The parents, notwithstanding the kooky name they gave their son, have behaved rationally all along -- they did have him undergo the mainstream recommended treatment of chemotherapy, rather than ignore reality and run straight to some "alternative" practitioner (the sort whose patient rosters are heavy on people with names like "Starchild"). The parents also didn't refuse to deal with the court system, and grab the kid and disappear. Neither the parents nor the child are rejecting all further mainstream medical treatment out of hand, but rather are just rejecting the single one they tried already and decided from experience wasn't worth it.
Too bad this sort of process and outcome is so rare when government authorities intervene in family matters.
Why is this even an issue?