Sarah Hershberger, second from right, is pictured at her family’s roadside stand in Homer Township on Sept. 24. Also pictured are her father and three of her siblings. (PHOTO PROVIDED BY 1851 CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW)
Posted on 10/04/2015 10:43:28 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
A Columbus attorney has announced that a 12-year-old Amish girl is cancer-free, despite courtroom testimony last year from doctors that she would be dead in six months without chemotherapy treatments.
Maurice Thompson, the executive director for the libertarian nonprofit 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, said the girl, Sarah Hershberger, shows no signs of cancer and appears to be healthy.
Sarah Hershberger, second from right, is pictured at her family’s roadside stand in Homer Township on Sept. 24. Also pictured are her father and three of her siblings. (PHOTO PROVIDED BY 1851 CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW)
“She had MRIs and blood work, and the judge over the last year helped facilitate at least one trip to the Cleveland Clinic. The MRIs did not show any cancer,” Thompson told The Gazette on Friday.
He said the family will continue to treat the girl with less invasive, alternative medicine.
“Once you have it, you’re never 100 percent out of the woods, whether or not you get chemotherapy,” he said. “I know how she looks isn’t really an indication of whether she has cancer, but she’s looking very healthy.”
When Sarah was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, her parents accepted chemo treatment for her at Akron Children’s Hospital. But Andy and Anna Hershberger, of Homer Township, said they felt the treatments were killing their daughter and ceased her treatments.
Akron Children’s Hospital responded by filing in Medina County Probate Court to obtain “limited guardianship” of the girl, which would grant them the power to make medical decisions for the girl. That’s when doctors testified Sarah would die without chemo treatment.
Probate Judge John J. Lohn, who has since retired, at first ruled the girl’s parents were competent to make their own decisions about their daughter’s health. The case then bounced between probate and appellate courts before Lohn was ordered to appoint a guardian.
Sarah’s family responded by fleeing the country last year to seek alternative treatment in Mexico and Canada. Months later, the hospital relinquished its guardianship.
Thompson said Probate Judge Kevin Dunn — who replaced Lohn when he retired in 2014 — formally terminated Sarah’s guardianship on Sept. 24. Thompson said the judge acknowledged that Sarah, who will turn 13 in November, showed no symptoms of cancer and that she appeared to be healthy.
When contacted by The Gazette several times this week, a spokesperson for Dunn said the judge had not yet prepared a journal entry regarding the hearing and she declined to confirm any of the events at the hearing. The entry is expected early next week.
In the wake of Sarah’s case, Thompson called on lawmakers to reform Ohio’s laws that grant judges the power to overrule parental decisions regarding their children’s health and wellbeing.
“It is now time for Ohio’s legislators to protect Ohio families from wayward judges,” the attorney said.
He criticized the legal test that judges relied on in the Hershberger case in order to supersede the Hershbergers’ decision to stop chemotherapy treatments.
“This test allows county judges to overrule health care, educational and other important decisions of suitable Ohio parents,” Thompson said. “In the wake of Sarah’s case, the concept came to be known as ‘medical kidnapping.’ ”
Akron Children’s Hospital declined on Thursday to comment on Thompson’s accusations.
A spokesperson said, however, that the hospital has established a committee with the Amish community to facilitate better communication regarding healthcare in the wake of Sarah’s case.
“Family-centered care has long been a tenet at Akron Children’s Hospital. Our caregivers strive every day to involve parents in decision making and to respect the cultural differences of our patient families,” the spokesperson said. “We have been updated periodically by Sarah’s family members through this committee and wish Sarah continued good health.”
Probate courts also routinely deal with the living: minors and incompetent adults, and anyone who is unable to consent to major financial or medical matters on their own and who have not made plans otherwise through, e.g., springing or durable power of attorney, etc.
How is she doing now, do you know? I sent her a ladybug once.
Thanks for this link.
Um, no....the parents relinquished the BS *gaurdianship* FOR the hospital...by "fleeing".
Another perfect example of just how precious many liberties have been trampled on, by the libs/Nanny-staters.
I don’t know anything recent. I hope her attorneys are getting ready to lay a huge lawsuit on the state.
Glad she is doing well without cemo.
We live near a lot of Amish. They regularly take the train (Amtrak) for long trips. For more local travel, they sometimes hire drivers. I’m sure they had help out of the country.
I can fully understand the parents thinking that the chemo was killing their daughter.
My wife recently lost her 6 year battle with inflammatory breast cancer. She did 2 full rounds of chemo and was starting a third before she decided enough was enough and left us to meet our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She was much stronger than I would have been the pain she lived with for the past several years was unbelievable.
I’m convinced that 200 years from now the medical profession will look at chemotherapy the same way we look at leaches and bloodletting.
What a glorious outcome! Thanks be to God!
Article is poorly written and has many grammatical mistakes. But I agree with it.
ALL should try and locate the video series, which is new, called “QUEST FOR THE CURES” with Ty Bollinger. You will have enough information to be begin a successful battle against cancer.
Please don’t end your life with poisons that the oncologists won’t give to themselves or their families !!!
Mrs. Esopman
Anybody under those circumstances will die quickly and badly.
Interesting 55 minute video on that subject.
I will look for that. I’m a huge fan of Cancer: The Forbidden Cures. It’s on YouTube.
She unfortunately was a true believer in Holistic (VooDoo) Medicine, just like Steve McQueen. She was a grown Woman and she made a conscious choice, the wrong choice as far as I'm concerned. What a waste of a wonderful Life, very sad.
Her early stage Breast Cancer turned into Terminal Bone Cancer. She wasn't even 60 Years Old and the last two Months of her Life were a living Hell.
She made the choice and her Husband, Grown Children and Friends are left behind to deal with it. My Wife is still devastated knowing the odds are she would still be with us if she tried traditional Treatment first rather than putting her faith in Charlatans posing as Medical Professionals.
I am saying this having been diagnosed with Leukemia nearly ten years ago. I am still alive thanks to my Oncologist, Blood Transfusions and Big Pharma, it's as simple as that.
One person's Holistic Medicine is another person's Suicide by Ignorance IMHO.
That being said, I am a believer in Personal Responsibility and Free Will.
What I find interesting is the same people giving “alternate (so called) Medicine” a thumbs up are the same people who believe that people who are suffering with no hope of recovery should not be able to end their own Lives but are relegated to endure a lingering painful Death.
I admittedly have a slanted viewpoint based on my personal Heath issues, but my experience leads me to my conclusion. I'm sure many disagree, so be it.
JEB Bush for President - only if you want a leader that orders death by starvation and dehydration of the innocent!
We now have a leader that has sanctified death by any means of innocent babies born alive after an abortion failed to kill them, I'm sure he'd have had no problem ordering a Terri Schiavo to be starved as well, and look how far down he has taken us!
***.....and JEB Bush saw to it that the execution was cruel and unusually harsh punishment!***
He sure did! Jeb will never get my vote!
Very few patients try alternative medicine first. You seem to be mistaken about McQueen. He tried your way before he passed on. Steve McQueen cancer death-His doctors gave him a gloomy prognosis, but they treated him with radiotherapy and chemotherapy to try to shrink the cancer">
This makes me think you are not being entirely being honest.
Ping to Post 35 and 38!
I know someone who has fallen for the holistic Bulls... So far she isn’t suffering from any serious illness but I fear the day that she does.
The treatments she has described to me are laughable.
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