Should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

Redress · May 17, 2009

Kandahar said:
These parents obviously aren't making unbiased, accurate decisions. So I'll trust the people who have the medical degrees.

True, but at least parents have a larger right to make biased decisions on behalf of their children.

What it comes down to to me is a matter of trust. I do not trust the government enough to want to give them the ability to take away a parents rights except in the most clear cut cases. Since the sure quantity of different possible scenarios involving medical treatment is vast, you have to make general rules, which leaves large room for poor interpretations.

celticlord · May 17, 2009

Kandahar said:
The fact that you are DEFENDING quackery is obviously clouding your judgment on this issue. That goes above and beyond the normal libertarian rhetoric that "The government doesn't have the right to ever interfere with parents under any circumstances." I'm telling you now: Defending quack medicine is not an argument that you are going to win. I suggest you take a different tack to explain why you don't think the state should interfere. Just some advice, do with it what you will.

What I am defending is the right of the parents to choose which courses of treatment they will pursue for their child.

As to whether I will win an argument or not is one more thing on that growing list of things you do not know.

hiswoman · May 17, 2009

In general, the government should not interfere with a parent's decision regarding their child's medical treatment. If parental choice is questionable in cases like this one, an assessment of the child's cognitive development should be made to ensure he or she understands the implications of refusing treatment. If he or she is competent to make that choice, it should be respected.

In this particular case, there are too many unanswered questions and I believe it was right for the court to intervene.

Kandahar · May 17, 2009

Redress said:
True, but at least parents have a larger right to make biased decisions on behalf of their children.

Parents don't have any right to make such decisions when their actions could kill their child.

Redress said:
What it comes down to to me is a matter of trust. I do not trust the government enough to want to give them the ability to take away a parents rights except in the most clear cut cases.

You have a clear-cut choice between chemotherapy and pseudoscience. One will probably help the child, the other certainly will not.

Redress said:
Since the sure quantity of different possible scenarios involving medical treatment is vast, you have to make general rules, which leaves large room for poor interpretations.

OK, here's my suggestion for a general rule: If Child Protection Services investigates a case and determines that the parents' refusal to provide medical treatment for their child is a danger to his life, they go before a judge. They get a panel of three doctors to independently examine the merits of the case. If they all unanimously agree that the parents are wrong and the child needs a certain medical treatment, then the child is forced to undergo the procedure. And if the child is at least 16, he may refuse the treatment on his own accord...but under no circumstance will parents ever be allowed to make the decision to let their child die if a viable life-saving treatment exists, unless the child is comatose with no hope of recovery.

Redress · May 17, 2009

Kandahar said:
You have a clear-cut choice between chemotherapy and pseudoscience. One will probably help the child, the other certainly will not.

The word I consider key is bolded. If it is not sure, it's probably best to let parents make the decision.

All this is tough stuff, and I am not even 100 % comfortable with my answers here. With that said, I am also far from comfortable letting the government get involved in medical decision. I think there are lines the government should not cross, even when at times the results are unpleasant.

Inferno · May 17, 2009

I don't know how anyone can make a parent do something that is or may be though of as purely experimental such as chemotherapy.

Makedde · May 17, 2009

obvious Child said:
While there are a multitude of incidents over the past couple years, here is a recent one about parents are refusing to allow chemotherapy on their kid and the kid appears to be ignorant of the situation.

Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boy

The kid is pretty much a goner without the treatment.

So, should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

[EDIT] Based on Etheral's insightful marks, assume at least for the discussion that the medical live saving treatment is medically sound and likely to save the child's life [/EDIT]

The boy has a 90% chance of survival with chemo. What chance does he have with a bunch of loonys praying for him? These parents are forcing their religious beliefs on their child. Yes, he should be made to undergo chemo for his cancer.

However, if he had suffered with cancer for a long period of time, and nothing had worked, he could be allowed to go home. But not in this case.

Makedde · May 17, 2009

celticlord said:
What I am defending is the right of the parents to choose which courses of treatment they will pursue for their child.

They may as well just kill the child right now, he is screwed with so called 'natural remedies'. The parents, if they had won, would basically have won the right to murder their own son.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

Kandahar said:
Terry Schiavo was not a child whose parents were killing her by denying her food (or medical treatment). She was a braindead woman with no hope of recovery whose husband had the legal right to make that decision for her. If the kid in this case was already braindead and his parents wanted to remove the feeding tube, I would absolutely support their rights to make that decision without the state interfering. But he is NOT braindead and he CAN possibly recover with chemo. Nice try though. :2wave:

Do you think parents should be able to deny their child food because Jesus told them to? Do you think parents should be able to deny their child life-saving medical care because Jesus told them to?

Well, if one of my children were in Terry Schiavo's place, I would order a re-evaluation using the current methids and definitions. This was not don with Terry, and she was able to comunicate. That's hardly what this humble capenter considers "brain dead".

I can't think of any other occasion where 'the left' was perfectly comfortable asserting outdated information and medical definitions which were not supported by the medical community as the Terry Schiavo case; but I digress.

Terry Schiavo was not suffering a terminal illness, she could still be alive today comunicating with people now as she was then, so I suppose she isn't a proper example.

Even if my child were brain dead, days of starvation is not what I think of when I consider taking somone off life support. I picture a doctor flipping a switch and turning off some equiptment, and the bodey dies imediatly or within a couple houres.

I empithise compleatly with your feelings on the issue, however I personaly don't want the governement to have any say choosing medical treatment unles it has a compelling reason to do so.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

Kandahar said:
These parents obviously aren't making unbiased, accurate decisions. So I'll trust the people who have the medical degrees.

It's not even your place to trust or not trust as they aren't your children.

ADK_Forever · May 17, 2009

celticlord said:
Ok, so the doctors say THEIR method has a 90% chance of success, and that any other approach has a 5% chance of success.

Yep, no bias there.:roll:

That's like saying that engineers who, after inspecting a bridge, advise it be closed down because it's main support members are compromised due to rust and cracks.

It's not a "bias". It's called an expert opinion. Something those parents do not have on their side.

celticlord · May 17, 2009

Makedde said:
They may as well just kill the child right now, he is screwed with so called 'natural remedies'. The parents, if they had won, would basically have won the right to murder their own son.

You would prefer the state have the right to murder the kid. Noted.

celticlord · May 17, 2009

ADK_Forever said:
That's like saying that engineers who, after inspecting a bridge, advise it be closed down because it's main support members are compromised due to rust and cracks.

It's not a "bias". It's called an expert opinion. Something those parents do not have on their side.

You need to work on your analogies.

The correct analogy would be a dispute between engineer A who wants a bridge repaired with additional steel and concrete supports underneath (and who owns a construction company), and engineer B who wants to add an aerial span to provide that support.

Saying that engineer A has no bias in that instance is just as absurd and incorrect as saying the doctors have no bias in this case.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

ADK_Forever said:
That's like saying that engineers who, after inspecting a bridge, advise it be closed down because it's main support members are compromised due to rust and cracks.

It's not a "bias". It's called an expert opinion. Something those parents do not have on their side.

Wow, so according to you, years of raising the child as it's legal guardian and intimatly involved in all aspects of that minor child's life does not give the parent any level of compitencey. Outstanding :roll:

law.com Law Dictionary

expert witness
n. a person who is a specialist in a subject, often technical, who may present his/her expert opinion without having been a witness to any occurrence relating to the lawsuit or criminal case. It is an exception to the rule against giving an opinion in trial, provided that the expert is qualified by evidence of his/her expertise, training and special knowledge. If the expertise is challenged, the attorney for the party calling the "expert" must make a showing of the necessary background through questions in court, and the trial judge has discretion to qualify the witness or rule he/she is not an expert, or is an expert on limited subjects. Experts are usually paid handsomely for their services and may be asked by the opposition the amount they are receiving for their work on the case. In most jurisdictions, both sides must exchange the names and addresses of proposed experts to allow pre-trial depositions.
See also: expert testimony

Oh sure, pure objectivity here :roll:

A technical opinion has value, but it does not make decisions.

Parents make the decisions. If their child is like a bridge who's suffering from rust and other wear, it is the parent's decision on rather to close the bridge, for how long, rather to tear it down compleatly or perform patch-work repairs (the latter may allow the bridge to stay open compleatly or for part of the day).

Give the doctors so much power and watch what happens when, in their medical opinion, there's no reason to terminate a pregnancey. We'll see then how fast your position on the issue changes.

Marilyn Monroe · May 17, 2009

Jerry said:
I think your useing very sujective qualifyers here, similer to pain, and don't forget that requiering the opinion of 3 phisitions lost Tesas the Roe decision

Usually when someone is brain dead they pull the plug. I'm not sure they even need the families permission in all cases.

I think if a kid has stage 4 cancer and is in constant pain they should be put on pain meds and made comfortable, but no more treatments.

ADK_Forever · May 17, 2009

Jerry said:
Parents make the decisions. If their child is like a bridge who's suffering from rust and other wear, it is the parent's decision on rather to close the bridge, for how long, rather to tear it down compleatly or perform patch-work repairs (the latter may allow the bridge to stay open compleatly or for part of the day).

In my analogy the doctors and the engineers have no vested interest or bias in their recommendations. The engineer is giving his expert opinion as to the state of health of the bridge, just as the doctor's only concern is the health of the patient.

In this case, there are no intelligent alternatives. It's not like the parents are going with radiation, at one doctor's advice, vs. chemo at another's. They are doing nothing.

Redress · May 17, 2009

ADK_Forever said:
In my analogy the doctors and the engineers have no vested interest or bias in their recommendations. The engineer is giving his expert opinion as to the state of health of the bridge, just as the doctor's only concern is the health of the patient.

In this case, there are no intelligent alternatives. It's not like the parents are going with radiation, at one doctor's advice, vs. chemo at another's. They are doing nothing.

For me the question is twofold though. How do you legally determine when a parent is making a justifiable medical decision for their child, and when they are just being neglectful? How do you make that law? Secondly, where is the dividing line between what a government can and cannot force people to do?

I think that the government just has no place making medical decisions for families. I do not trust the government to the level it would take for me to be comfortable with them making the decisions, and I think it is too great an infringement on personal liberty.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

ADK_Forever said:
In my analogy the doctors and the engineers have no vested interest or bias in their recommendations. The engineer is giving his expert opinion as to the state of health of the bridge, just as the doctor's only concern is the health of the patient.

In this case, there are no intelligent alternatives. It's not like the parents are going with radiation, at one doctor's advice, vs. chemo at another's. They are doing nothing.

While I agree with you on this example, I also realize that this is a seroget argument for another issue.

I agree with the seroget argument, however I would stand in it's way so as to impeed governement interfearence in private medical decisions.

Ethereal · May 17, 2009

Parents make the decisions. If their child is like a bridge who's suffering from rust and other wear, it is the parent's decision on rather to close the bridge, for how long, rather to tear it down compleatly or perform patch-work repairs (the latter may allow the bridge to stay open compleatly or for part of the day).

Funny thing, that, because children aren't bridges; that they are in anyway analogous to a piece of property is objectionable. Now, I'm certainly no nanny-government, liberal busy-body, but the idea of completely and utterly surrendering a child's will to their parents as if the child were nothing more than a piece of property is extreme and contrary to the law - both in letter and spirit.

Parents absolutely have a legitimate role in dictating and supervising the development of their children, indeed, parents are the most essential form of government a society has, but children are also part of a society, and they too have rights; granted, they are able to exercise them to a lesser extent than others, but they still retain the most fundamental ones, and one of the very few legitimate functions of government is to protect our rights. Obviously, a balance must be struck between the rights of parents and children but the parents' rights are anything but absolute, nor are the child's nonexistent.

Redress · May 17, 2009

Ethereal said:
Funny thing, that, because children aren't bridges; that they are in anyway analogous to a piece of property is objectionable. Now, I'm certainly no nanny-government, liberal busy-body, but the idea of completely and utterly surrendering a child's will to their parents as if the child were nothing more than a piece of property is extreme and contrary to the law - both in letter and spirit.

Parents absolutely have a legitimate role in dictating and supervising the development of their children, indeed, parents are the most essential form of government a society has, but children are also part of a society, and they too have rights; granted, they are able to exercise them to a lesser extent than others, but they still retain the most fundamental ones, and one of the very few legitimate functions of government is to protect our rights. Obviously, a balance must be struck between the rights of parents and children but the parents' rights are anything but absolute, nor are the child's nonexistent.

I do not think there is a lot of dispute that there has to be a balance point. What is in dispute is where the balance point is. I think we all agree that starving a child is a crime, and can and should cost a parent the right to care for their child. What I think a very few of us are arguing(and we are an odd coalition who don't agree on much outside this issue) is that when it comes to making medical decisions for children, the balance point is directly under the parents. They should have sole discretion in making those decisions simply because the government has no place making the decision.

Ethereal · May 17, 2009

Redress said:
I do not think there is a lot of dispute that there has to be a balance point. What is in dispute is where the balance point is. I think we all agree that starving a child is a crime, and can and should cost a parent the right to care for their child. What I think a very few of us are arguing(and we are an odd coalition who don't agree on much outside this issue) is that when it comes to making medical decisions for children, the balance point is directly under the parents. They should have sole discretion in making those decisions simply because the government has no place making the decision.

No person should retain sole discretion over another person's very existence.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

Ethereal said:
Funny thing, that, because children aren't bridges; that they are in anyway analogous to a piece of property is objectionable. Now, I'm certainly no nanny-government, liberal busy-body, but the idea of completely and utterly surrendering a child's will to their parents as if the child were nothing more than a piece of property is extreme and contrary to the law - both in letter and spirit.

Parents absolutely have a legitimate role in dictating and supervising the development of their children, indeed, parents are the most essential form of government a society has, but children are also part of a society, and they too have rights; granted, they are able to exercise them to a lesser extent than others, but they still retain the most fundamental ones, and one of the very few legitimate functions of government is to protect our rights. Obviously, a balance must be struck between the rights of parents and children but the parents' rights are anything but absolute, nor are the child's nonexistent.

That's my position precicly.

Jerry · May 17, 2009

Ethereal said:
No person should retain sole discretion over another person's very existence.

...Terry Schiavo....just sayin.....

Ethereal · May 17, 2009

Jerry said:
That's my position precicly.

So, you're not arguing the "right" of parents to make a decision which will effectively end their child's life?

...Terry Schiavo....just sayin.....

And it was immoral. What's your point?

Jerry · May 17, 2009

Ethereal said:
So, you're not arguing the "right" of parents to make a decision which will effectively end their child's life?

Of course I am, but I'm also recognizing that those rights are not absolute.

I've already said many times on this thread that I am open to any argument which can establish a "compelling state interest" and interfere with the parent's right in the "care, control and custody" of their children (per Troxil).

Ethereal said:
And it was immoral. What's your point?

Just an example :2wave:

Should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

So, should parents be allowed to refuse life saving treatment for their children?

Yes, parents should be allowed

No, parents should not be allowed

I don't know

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