13 Year-Old To Get Chemotherapy After All

Daniel Hauser is a 13 year-old boy from Minnesota.  According to the news stories I have been reading, he has been diagnosed with cancer, and will probably die without chemotherapy treatment.  The story has been making the news because his parents resisted this course of treatment.  A judge ordered that the boy be given chemo against the parents wishes.  The mother apparently took him, and went into hiding.  After being threatened with arrest, and the decent possibility that she would never see her son again, she agreed to go back and allow the doctors to treat the boy with chemo.  A great victory for government, or yet another example of how your body belongs to the state, and not you?

In Washington, voters have approved the so-called “death with dignity” initiative that allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medicine to patients.  This allows patients to kill themselves, foregoing the pain and discomfort of failing health, and as the saying goes “die with dignity”.  (I am personally opposed to this initiative and practice, as I feel it violates the doctor’s oath to “do no harm”.)  Here is my question: what if a judge ordered a patient to get a lethal dose of medication, in order to “die with dignity”?

This is not as far fetched as you might think.  Even now, a movement is afoot to nationalize healthcare.  All medical decisions will be vested with a small group, a politburo if you will, in Washington D.C.  They will make all decisions on healthcare.  If chemo is deemed too expensive, then you can “die with dignity”.  The courts, and government officials are, after all, acting in the public’s best interest.  A cost/benefit analysis of your treatment will be done in a government office, where political favors and bribes will influence the outcome.  All in the name of “free” healthcare.

It does not have to be this way.  Historically, courts have held that individuals have the constitutional right to refuse treatment.  Apparently, that right does not exist for the 13 year-old and his family in Minnesota.  In years gone by, medical decisions were between the doctor and patient.  Now we have insurance companies, courts, and government officials messing it up.

Many terminally ill patients decide that they do not want to go into a hospital, and prefer instead to die at home under hospice care, or with family.  Usually, the people making these decisions have lived a good number of years.  In the case of the 13 year-old cancer patient, I think the boy and his family should be given the same options.  It’s their body, their life, and their decision to make.  It should not be up to the government to decide for the people.

Just because their decision would run counter to what most of us would choose, does not give us the right to take away their freedom.

I am praying that Daniel Hauser makes a healthy recovery from his illness.  I am also praying that the government never interferes with, or mandates, what course of treatment that I, or any family member, receive from our doctors.

Reference:

CNN: Judge orders chemotherapy for 13-year-old cancer patient