Posted by J on March 22, 1999 at 08:58:18 {MWrEF4/YdaJ9k}:
In Reply to: Hope fading fast 4 Deuck lad posted by Harold on March 22, 1999 at 07:50:38:
For another perspective I attach an editorial that appeared in the paper today. I must say I would tend to agree with her sentiments. It boils down to freedom to decide what happens to your body. It is more complicated when dealing with "mature minors". At what point may a parent's/child's/patients' wishes be superseded by the government?
Article:
By MARIANNE MEED WARD
What if your doctors told you you had
an incurable disease that would kill you within a year, and to fight it they'd have to cut off your leg and subject you to treatment that might weaken your heart and kidneys, depress your immune system, make your hair fall out, give you
mouth sores and possibly make you infertile?
And what if they said you'd still only have a slightly better than 50-50 chance of surviving?
Then, what if you said you'd keep your leg, thanks, and were heading to Mexico ASAP to
experiment with some treatments, soak up the sun, take your chances with Mother Nature, and generally enjoy whatever remaining months you had?
Probably we would think you were as sane as lemonade on a hot summer day, and we'd applaud your attempt to "die with dignity," or at least with a tequila in one hand and a beach towel in the other.
But what if you are 13 and your parents hold a "right-wing, fundamentalist, faith-healing" Christian world view?
Apparently, your trip to Mexico would be off and your visit to the leg doctor would be on. That was the decision of a Saskatoon judge last week in the case of Tyrell Dueck. The judge ordered Tyrell to resume chemotherapy treatment for bone cancer in his leg, against his and his parents' wishes, and turned his medical decisions over to Saskatchewan social services.
Sadly, the issue has now been rended moot, because the cancer has spread to Tyrell's lungs. Over the weekend he was released to the care of his parents. None the less, the judge's ruling sets frightening precedents regarding religious freedom, parental rights, state control and medical opinions.
Tyrell and his parents say they believe God will heal
him. They don't object to the cancer treatment on religious grounds, but they prefer to trust the power of prayer as well as alternative therapies, including vitamin and mineral injections at a clinic in Tijuana. But in our secularized
society, putting one's faith in God (as opposed to science and technology) is tantamount to declaring yourself the religious equivalent of a redneck.
I'm too much of a skeptic to unreservedly accept the notion of faith healing. But
whether or not
prayer cures isn't the point (and some studies have suggested that prayer helps). The point is whether the patient believes it will help. This is the placebo effect. Patients who are given a placebo, essentially a fake
drug or treatment, often recover at similar rates as patients given the real deal. Both sets of patients believe the treatment they are getting will help and that belief affects their recovery.
But it seems making a decision based on religious reasons is tantamount to declaring yourself mentally incompetent. His age notwithstanding, if Tyrell had said he was rejecting treatment because he didn't like the potential side effects, or the inevitable pain, or his odds (65% chance of recovery with treatment), one suspects the case would never have gone to trial. But because God entered the picture, so did the government.
The judge ordered Tyrell to undergo a psychological assessment to determine his
capacity to make decisions, particularly whether he was unduly influenced by his father. Um, I always thought parents had a right - and a responsibility - to influence their children. One suspects that if Tyrell had accepted the
treatment we wouldn't be tut-tutting about the "undue influence of his doctors."
But that's because we've elevated medical opinions to the level of biblical revelation, even though we know that doctors are sometimes wrong, or they just
don't know. And sometimes their opposition to alternative therapies has as much to do with self-preservation as sound medicine. (Think of the ongoing debate over chiropractic care, even though it has helped many people.) I'm not opposed
to state intervention to save a child's life, like, for example, force-feeding an anorexic teenager. With food she'll live, without it she won't. But for Tyrell the treatment is much more invasive, it may not work and there are
alternatives, however tenuous.
If his freedom means anything, it means freedom to make decisions that others might not.
Marianne Meed Ward, a freelance writer with an interest in social and ethical issues
Her
e-mail is:[email protected]