Neglecting child treatment because of religion, totally ridiculous?
In Minnesota ( as I’m sure you’ve all read ) there is a 13 year old boy who has cancer and has gone with no treatment because the parents believe that there is a ‘natural’ way of healing through prayer and so they refuse treatment for him. Thank goodness that a court ordered that he MUST have treatment to help save his life. Now I am a Christian and believe prayer does work wonders but I also believe that the prayer should be said in addition to the treatment available.
What do you think about all of this?
That’s pretty stupid.
I know a grown woman who died very slowly of lung cancer because she refused to see a doctor for a long time and when she finally did she refused treatment and talked to some alternative "docto"r on the other side of the country by phone for months about what herbs to eat and crap and then finally the "doctor" flew in to heal her with magical stones or something. She would probably still be alive today if she had had surgery as soon as they found the cancer. Instead she had it for 2 years or so and died a really crappy death with everyone around her BEGGING her to go to a real doctor.
If you want to try prayer, or magic rocks or whatever that’s fine but stuff like cancer needs to be physically removed from your body. Praying isn’t going to make the tumor hop out of you.
I think the judge did the right thing.
I am a christian as well and I feel for this kid. I mean the docs say that if he takes the chemo then he has a 90% survival rate. I agree that pray should be used but they should also be using the chemo to help him.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtQMv_BgX6AtjZPmX_tcG1Lsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090515124329AAPVRSq
AND
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlFalVcqNstvUGCZCEuJSoPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090515123952AAS5ZFx
It is sad but this child should get treatment for his cancer. I am also a Christian and it is okay to pray and ask for healing but God also annoints and appoints physicans as well.
I think that the boy should definitely be receiving treatment. Prayer does work wonders, but I don’t think that prayer can heal everything. The treatment he will be receiving could be life saving for him.
you need a license to drive,a permit to dump garbage,a permit to carry a gun,and a license to get married..but any retard can have a child.
even if the parents appealed it, there is a US Supreme Court ruling stating that i parent cannot push there religious believes on the kids until there are 17, and can make there own decisions. because this had happened in the past, with kids in a car crash and they died because the parents wouldn’t let the police help them.
I read about this and it is very sad, either way. The judge did the right thing because this child does not even understand the situation he is in. Apparently he has learning disabilities and cannot even read at 13 so telling someone and getting outside help on his own was probably not going to happen and he would have died.
Actually it really concerns me. It’s not accurate to say he was receiving NO treatment – he wasn’t getting chemo. He WAS getting alternative therapies, which many adults choose instead of chemo. There are other valid treatments out there besides the traditional regimen western medicine limits itself to. While chemo may have been the best thing for his illness in this case, I don’t like judges interfering with the parents’ right to make educated decisions that may not necessarily be in the mainstream.
I’m less concerned with this particular case and more for the precedent it sets to take away the rights of parents to make decisions for their children’s health. For example, we do not vaccinate and have done more research on vaccines than ANY doctor I’ve encountered. It’s a well informed decision for our health and the health of our children – it’s not neglect when you are making a conscious decision you believe is in your child’s best interest. In this case we believe (and statistics support) that the risks of our child dying or suffering long-term health problems from one of those diseases are significantly lower than the risk of our child dying or suffering long-term health problems as a result of a vaccine reaction. This is just an example…basically I think government needs to butt out, because western medicine is NOT always right. There are some alternative therapies that have proven much more effective than the standard treatment for a given condition, and parents should not be prohibited from pursuing those based on informed research and careful consideration of risk vs. benefit, even if doctors and judges disagree.