Maggie's Farm

"Can the government force medical treatment?"

Under ordinary circumstances no and they shouldn't. There was a case locally where a family from a odd religious sect refused all medical care for their teenage son and he died. There was a trial and guilt was assigned to the parents but no jail time or other punishment. Then the second teen son came under similar risk and would have died as well except that someone reported the situation to the authorities. The young man was "rescued" from the parents, received health care and will be fine now. Should the courts/doctors ignore incredibly bad health care choices by parents for their children? Perhaps even health care choices that effectively amount to suicide? I believe that if an adult chooses some superstition based alternative for themselves that they do indeed have a legal right to be THAT stupid. But I don't believe that they have a legal right to be that stupid for their children. Steve Jobs choose superstition and "woo" over actual medical care and time ticked away until there was nothing that science based health care could do to save him. That was his decision. BUT where I think our legal system failed us on this issue is that there should have been a prosecution on those practioners of superstition and "woo" who seduced Jobs into believing they could help him.

It is the teen girls mother who is the center of this story who is pushng her daughter to commit suicide by ignoring treatment for a curable disease in preference to a "woo" based alternative. This important point is lost in the discussion. If the woman's choice was simply that she would rather her daughter died from Hodgkin's lymphoma then undergo the difficult treatment I would have more respect for her decision. But what isn't being told is that the woman has been seduced by the prescription of "woo" by superstition based practicers of "woo" and it is this 3rd world level of ignorance and dishonesty that is at the center of this story. In my humble opinion someone should go to jail for this. While they may not be full fledged witch doctors in a mask and chanting incantations they might as well be. They spread their misinformation and seduce sick people who are very vulnerable into making poor decisions at the very time when these people need the best advice available. Maybe the correct answer is to let this mother deny her child legitimate health care and seek out CAM alternatives and then when the young lady dies to prosecute everyone involved with the CAM alternative treatment including the mother.