We run into sketchy territory with this, because parents have life-and-death control over their kids in lots of areas, like with vaccines.

I agree with you, but I also understand the lack of desire to do chemo. My mother had to stop, because the "cure" was making her sicker than the disease.

I'm a little confused here. If the parents are all into alternative medicine, why'd they take the kid to the doctor in the first place?

I'm going to take the unpopular position here.

Let him die. Anyone who does not want treatment, even for their minor child, should be allowed to deny it.

First, if I had been diagnosed with something like that at so young an age, I'd assume the universe had it in for me and just go. Hodgkin's at 13, leukemia at 4. What chance do you have of not being on chemo for the rest of your short, miserable life at that point.

Second, denying care for something that is not recurring (but deadly) like measles or what have you will weed out the weak and unworthy. It's good for the gene pool.

If somebody truly wants to die -- say, because they can't take the suffering of chemo -- they shouldn't be forced into treatment. I've considered that in this case -- but the kid is being sold a bill of goods by his idiot parents, who have been sold a bill of goods by the guy who profits off the gullibility of people like these with this "religion" that costs $250 a year to join and $100 a year to remain in (and I wouldn't be shocked to hear that the guy sells those supplements).

I'm also for the legalization of assisted suicide for those who are in a condition which prohibits them from killing themselves.

>>In a written statement issued last week, an attorney for the parents said they "believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body...

They are right, of course - as is Amy.

Chemo is an assault - and that's where loving & informed parents need to stand strong against the pissant alt. crowd with their pointlessly "gentle" herbs & hands - and help the poor kid face the tough chemo battle.

The child has some mental disability and cannot read, according to court statements. He has no means of understanding the implications of his refusal. I used to work in a cancer center. Chemo is rough, but so many kids come out with years of life ahead of them. (My longest follow-up was 30 years post treatment).

Brian-'life not worthy of life"?

We have used valid speech and educational therapy for our autistic child, but there are so many quacks trying to sell autism 'cures' to desperate parents. I hate these exploiters. And the lack of scientific knowledge in the general population that allows them to get away with this.

As much as I am against government intervention into people's personal lives, I wish that these people wouldn't be allowed to breed again. One would think that allowing one's child to die for lack of medical intervention would constitute child abuse, at a minimum.

Medical treatments suck. Some are more miserable than others. However, just because something sucks, that doesn't mean that kids shouldn't be forced to do it. I thought about this one for a bit, and in the end we have a kid who will likely get better and stay that way if the parents will just suck it up.

If the kid was stage 4 recurrence with no hope, I would view this differently. Sometimes attempting to treat cancer is just creating agony. However, this kid has a really good prognosis if the parents don't keep him away for too long. Sometimes loving someone means being willing to make them miserable for their own good. Even a good friend will push you to do something that is good for you but is miserable to experience.

If the kid dies because they refused treatment, I think that they should be prosecuted for homicide. What the parents fail to understand is dying from cancer is no picnic.

I thought about this one for a bit, and in the end we have a kid who will likely get better and stay that way if the parents will just suck it up.

No, he probably won't. Here's why.

In his mind, he's already dead. He's given up the fight. And his parents are facilitating that.

If the parents are unwilling or unable to convince him to fight, he should just die and get it over with. Hopefully his parents are too old to create another.

The sad part is that doctors have told people I know (who had loved ones in cancer treatment) that Hodgkin's is the *one* cancer they are confident in treating. I'm told the success rate is just about the best of all the cancers.

"You have a right, but not an open-ended right," Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said last week. "You can't compromise the life of your child.

That's a weak answer. Parents can compromise the life of their child in many many ways, from choice of town to live in, to diet, to schooling, to religion, to parenting, to punishment, to medicine.

I like your idea Amy of getting peer help for the child. I am somewhat inclined to think that is the path the government should be taking wrt the parents. Find the parents others in their religion who can talk to them from experience, and from other but similar religious aspects.

If the government can't use knowledge and persuasion, I am loathe to intercede, because of yeah, that damned slippery slope.

I tried to post something before that got eaten, about the slippery slope.

When we get down to the idea of prosecuting people like this, we have to ask ourselves, how, exactly, do we prosecute, and where do we stop? Do we jail parents of fat kids? Of kids who won't wear a bike helmet? What if one parent wants treatment but caves to the parent who doesn't? Can a prosecutor prove the kid is dead because parents withheld treatment? What if the kid would have died anyway? Doctors are never 100% sure about these things.

Also, what if other kids are involved? Do we take them away from dumb-ass but otherwise loving parents and place them in foster care?

> It seems pretty clear that parents
> don't have the right to sentence
> their child to death because
> they're morons.

Eagerness to snark belittles our moral authority in cases like this.

(I first heard about it on the radio during the commute yesterday, and don't know the deets, and haven't followed your link. The kid's learning-disabled, right? And the parents are assholes, right?)

Proper respect should be given to the monstrosity of cancer, a motherfucker disease. It's not ususual to get it. It's not always curable. We don't always know when it's curable and when it isn't. And it often happens to people who have other problems, and it often happens to people who have attitudes we don't like. And doctors will fight aggressively and sportingly anyway, because we want them to and because it's good for business. Their attitudes aren't uniformly perfect, either.

(Don't gloss over that last part. Chemo does horrible, horrible things to people, and a parent who doesn't want a dim, weakened child to go through it deserves a few heartbeats of sympathy. This is not just a mathematics problem.)

I think that as we're scurrying through our little rodent lives –hustling to make a buck and get the kids to soccer and finish the paperwork on the Anderson account and keep our mistresses from getting too pissed off– most of us adopt a sort of default posture of bitter, unsmiling enthusiasm for life. We walk through our days with a little tape loop running in the back corner of our brains, a little Ipod that repeats the drum solo:

"Goddamn it, I am going to live! I will fight and claw and struggle and kill if I have to, but *I* am going to fucking well survive!"

The other sectors of our brains know that it's not true, but those sectors are busy dealing with things on a more practical level... and on a more compassionate level as well. We just leave that loop running so that in an emergency, we can start listening to it without having to start the machine.

But that stupid little tape loop wants to be respected, too. So when we see a crisis like this, we want to say someone didn't listen to the loop, instead of acknowledging how shitty the circumstance is.

This case isn't about policy issues. This kid doesn't represent some tragic trend of parental or medical imcompetence. The vast majority of people are ready to fight like Hell when they get sick, even when fate demands death (as it may have demanded of this kid no matter what.) The parental incompetence (if that's all that it is) is no more contagious than the cancer.

So you don't have to hate this case too much. Pain and stupdity are colliding around us all the time anyway. Stories like this make good radio for morning drive, but that's about it.

These same religious fucktards would be the first ones to protest an abortion clinic to defend the "life" of an unborn child...then they use that same religious lack-of-reasoning to defend letting their own child die from cancer.

Just a guess, but I bet I'm right - if someone asked these parents how they felt about abortion they'd be prolife.

Gretchen -

First, the proper term is not pro-life. It is anti-abortion. The proper term for their opposition is not pro-choice, it is pro-abortion. Both groups are determined by a single belief in a single issue at a single time in the life cycle. Don't fall for the PC sugar coating of either of them.

Second, if a family does not want their child saved, who are we to give a fuck? One of the reasons we find ourselves in the sorry situation we are in is that we coddle the weak and unworthy. Two hundred years ago, a learning-disabled boy would have been, at best, slopping hogs. If he died of cancer, nobody would miss him, but he'd likely have died of something else far sooner. Because of modern medicine and hygiene, people live much longer and healthier. There's no weeding out of the defective any more.

So whenever someone wants to voluntarily take themselves out of the genetic lottery, I don't care how curable their disease is, you let them go.

A friend said to me the other day (this is probably a circulating e-mail meme) - let the liberals have gay marriage and abortion. In three generations, there won't be any more liberals.

Crid.
Just read what you wrote.
You said it better than I can.
Plus One!

Crid: A hell of good comment.

... a good comment, of course!

A friend said to me the other day (this is probably a circulating e-mail meme) - let the liberals have gay marriage and abortion. In three generations, there won't be any more liberals.

Interesting, Brian, because a liberal friend of mine suggested we let the conservatives have abortion, since it seems to be the issue all the social conservatives circle around every four years. His idea was, take away abortion, and conservatives splinter. (When I talk to this particular friend, I realize how meaningless words like "liberal" and "conservative" are. I'm a left-wing nut by this blog's standards and an uptight conservative according to others.)

Well, MonicaP, I've long said that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the Republican Party as it now exists would either fall apart or have to rethink its approach radically. Of course, the Republicans seem to be doing a good job causing the party to fall apart without Roe v. Wade being overturned...

In his mind, he's already dead. He's given up the fight. And his parents are facilitating that.

Actually, unless I'm mistaken, he and the parents are claiming that "alternative" measures alone would be enough to cure his cancer. They seem to believe that there currently exists some highly effective means of combating cancer that is not painful and debilitating. Sorry, kid, maybe Dr. McCoy in the 23rd century could hook you up, but he's not around at the moment.

I take folic acid every day, so I certainly don't believe that only medicines created in a lab are effective. I just don't believe substances and treatments that show no positive effects in double-blind, randomized trials are effective. Guess that makes me a tool of Western imperialism...but I'll probably outlive the people sneering at me, so that's a plus. But yes, Hodgkin's is probably one of the most curable cancers there is. The kid could have a more-or-less normal life (assuming someone was on the ball enough to get him to bank his sperm; chemo tends to render one infertile, and while he may decide later to be happily childfree, that should get to be a choice, not a default).

Crid: Like the comment, but as I said, the impression I get here isn't that the parents and kid are accepting his death, but that they think he can be cured if they can just get him away from the awful doctors. I have less sympathy for that. YMMV.

Well, MonicaP, I've long said that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the Republican Party as it now exists would either fall apart or have to rethink its approach radically. Of course, the Republicans seem to be doing a good job causing the party to fall apart without Roe v. Wade being overturned...

That's where you're wrong. The abortion wing might, but if the Republican party could shake their big spenders, they wouldn't splinter because the core is still the small government low tax base. We've let the social conservatives run roughshod over the party for too long, and they've finally revealed themselves to be the progressives they've always been.

The only difference between a "social conservative" and a "progressive" is the particular behaviors they want the government to mandate.

Proper respect should be given to the monstrosity of cancer, a motherfucker disease. It's not ususual to get it.

Crid, I haven't followed this case closely, and I largely agree with you in this instance, but just to make it even a more difficult philosophical choice, apparently the cancer this young boy has is considered readily treatable.

So the parents are refusing to treat a readily treatable form of cancer, and the government wants to intercede for a kid who most likely would survive with treatment.

I think what Monica says about the slippery slope is correct wrt parenting issues. Either we do away with parenting your own kids and move to government or corporate parenting centers, or we agree to largely respect parents.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520690,00.html

A few quotes and questions

The Hausers are Roman Catholic and also believe in the "do no harm" philosophy of the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group that believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

Then how did they ever wind up in a hospital to discover the cancer to begin with? Or even get so far as to have one chemo treatment?

Colleen Hauser testified earlier that she had been treating his cancer with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives.

How exactly are artificially created ionized water and vitamin pills 'natural'?

He also wrote that Daniel, who has a learning disability and cannot read, did not understand the risks and benefits of chemotherapy and didn't believe he was ill.

Most people debating this are ignoring the learning disability, and that a 13yr old cant read

Daniel testified that he believed the chemo would kill him


I wonder where he got that idea

Apparently the familly's lawyer has disappeared as well, didnt show up for court after the mother skipped town with her son

I dont think the slippery slope argument applies in thi case for two reasons. First this kid has mental problems, 13 and cant read? You hear people on the radio either ignoring this fact or unaware saying he should have a say, would you say a 3 or a 4 yr old has a say in if they get chemo?

2nd, the 'relgious' belief is obviously bullshit, they pulled it out of their asses AFTER they used modern medicine to diognose the problem and eve went so far as to have the first chemo treatment done on their son.

If they truly believed that chemo was an 'assult' on his bodily integrity (and cancer isnt??) why did they have the first treatment?

And oddly enough according to the article I linked above the father, now that his wife has kidnapped the boy and run off, thinks his son should get the chemo.

The tumor shrunk after one treatment, but has grown back to its original size under the 'natural' treatment plan.

And again how are artifically created vitamin pills natural?

> they think he can be cured if they can
> just get him away from the awful doctors.
> I have less sympathy

Remember, my comments are essentially research-free! I don't know anything about these people at all. But I'd suspect you're on to something here:

> They seem to believe that there
> currently exists some highly effective
> means of combating cancer that is not
> painful and debilitating.

There are lots of unedjumicated people who move through life without worrying about whether "there exists some highly effective means" of doodily-squat. They've gone through the last ten or fifteen thousand days of their lives without worrying about such things, certainly not worrying about them in the scary language college graj-ee-ates, and they've done just fine for themselves and thanks for asking. They know doctors as cold, rushed, smart-alecky fuckers who'll take your truck as payment for sticking fifty needles into your little boy when any fool could see he's already had a bad day.

Dealing with people like that isn't just about sympathy or compassion or patience (or patients).

In this hour when government is all about compulsory submission to loathsome management of our challenges and resources (imposed for our own good), it's not just pragmatism that should compel us to regard this family with a little modesty, perhaps with an averted gaze.

Doctors truly don't know everything. The treatment most likely to bring a good result isn't the same thing as a good outcome.

> apparently the cancer this
> young boy has is considered
> readily treatable.

It hurts, it hurts. But if the parents are truly weak but not incompetent or vicious, whatcha gonna do?

...scary language of college etc.

I have a question to those who are on the 'slipery slope' bandwagon.

At what point does it become a slipery slope?

Why does society get to tell us how fast we can drive in the name of saftey, or what drug we can self medicate with, or if prostitution is so morally wrong that it must be outlawed.

How is any of that crap different then this case where you have a form of cancer that has a 90% survival rate when treated and will end in death if not treated?

What if the kid had a compound fracture of the leg and his parents didnt want to put him thru the 'pain' of having it set, and decided to go with 'natural' healing and he died from sepsis or gangrene because the bone sticking out of his leg wasnt treated.

Would you still be claiming its a slippery slope to 'force' treatment?

I don't claim it's a slippery slope. It's Darwin in action.

The stupid die.

lujlp, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and Gov't are there to protect me from others, protect me from Gov't and protect me from other Gov'ts. It's not there to protect me from my own stupidity.

We can set limits on driving because your right to speed should end before you skid out and hit my vehicle.

We can limit drugs we self-medicate with because of what you might do in a self-medicated state in that vehicle and I do think we limit those drugs way too much.

We can limit prostitution because at times it is not a victimless crime. And when it is, we shouldn't limit that.

If a kid is being maltreated and in great pain that is being ignored that's probably child abuse. If a kid is simply going through the natural end of life of a cancer, that may not be. I am for universal health care, but I am not fond of the gov't diagnosing and mandating treatments follow their plan.

And I really think the gov't should stay as much away from parenting issues as it can, or just get rid of the charade and take over the whole damn thing.

So if the parents can get some form of recognized doctor or priest to somehow explain their theory of treatment, then I think we should let them alone, even recognizing that some kids will die.

Jerry -

You manage cognitive dissonance well.

This one statement:

I am for universal health care

is completely at odds with the entire rest of your post.

What the fuck do you think THE POINT of Universal healthcare is?

"I don't claim it's a slippery slope. It's Darwin in action.

The stupid die."

Eww, just eww. Are people just targets to you? This is a kid for chist-sakes!

Native American medicine isn’t the "anglo way", but one thing it is not is "stupid".

This is how they heal people in their culture - (and I can bet anyone on here the water therapy wasn’t the only "therapy" being used - but considering the sampling of irreverent statements above, I can see why they are reluctant to share these things types of things out in the open.)

Natives were healing themselves with their medicine for centuries before the colonists arrived. Western Traditional medicine owes a lot to the American Natives - for many of their healing practices and herbal medicines were used in making Western Medicine what it is today. Yet their wisdom goes completely unacknowledged and even worse, belittled by those who have never done even the most basic research on their culture or their medicine.

Native American medicine was highly respected up until 1907, when the government decided to limit its financial support for medical training to “conventional” medical schools. This was the first step to socially engineering Natives out of a creditable place in US medicine. They refused issuing them medical licenses when the herbs they were using to cure people were viewed primarily as a source of new pharmacologically active chemicals rather than the plants and herbs as a whole (using plants as a whole -or medicine- unadulterated does not produce many of the “side effects” you see in pharma products today) in their own rights.

The wild yam – Duiscirea villosa, for example (used by Natives for rheumatic conditions and contraception) was in 1942 discovered to contain a steroid that mimics effects of progesterone – one of the female sex hormones. Syntex (Pharma Company) produced the first contraceptive pill from this herb and made a ton of money --but the Natives certainly see any of it nor were they even given the respect they deserved and every ignorant ass out there thinks their medicinal practices are "stupid, silly, or hokey")

I have two dear friends of mine who work in the AmerIndian ways of healing (Medicine Man and Woman) they are far from stupid, highly educated (with doctorates)and have cured themselves of life threatening illnesses (and cured me of minor medical conditions).

I'm not advocating refusing chemo for a child with curable cancer...what I am saying is that many of you dont have the FIRST clue about their culture or advanced healing practices as they have existed LONG before we were ever here.

RE: Universal Healthcare - if this ever does come about, I wonder how many of you will think these types of treatments ridiculous and idiotic if you or a loved one learn of a life threatening illness and you cant be seen for 6 months.

I find it typical that the initial coverage I saw omitted the fact that this kid has (lots of?) other problems. This makes me wonder how much is still hidden. Is this perhaps a case of saving him from one disease to have him die a year later from the other thirteen that he has?

Crid, if you have the time and motivation, you really ought to collect your comments and submit them to one of the big newspapers as an editorial (obviously, one that's covered this case).

Amy's Ipod has a fresh battery....

jerry the fact that this kid is using 'alternitive' medicine can be veiwed as proof that he does not want to die.

You say we set limits on speed to prevent people from hurting each other?

I ask again how is that any different that forcing treatment on a kid who WILL DIE without it and who has a 9 in 10 chance of living 7 more decades if treated?

Are not his parents harming him by withholding life saving medicine from a child who obviously wants to live?

Eww, just eww. Are people just targets to you? This is a kid for chist-sakes!

Look, there are too many stupids in the world. If they wanna off themselves or their offspring, I'm not going to stand in their way.

We need to weed out some of the stupids if we are ever going to have another shot at liberty in this world.

>>We need to weed out some of the stupids if we are ever going to have another shot at liberty in this world.

So what ya going to do about it, brian?

Just keep gnawing the top off your biro in frustration as you dream your little eugenicist dreams?

(You've made the same point four times in this thread already!)

I don't get a warm fuzzy at the idea of this kid's death. It sucks that he lost the genetic lottery. And there's no good decision here: There's only the bad call and the worse one.

Worst-case scenario if this kid doesn't get chemo: He might die. But, as Crid so eloquently pointed out, there isn't going to be a rush on people trading chemo for chamomile tea.

Worst-case scenario of the government forcing treatment: We've opened the door to the government overriding every major and minor parental decision "for the sake of the children." And the kid might die anyway, because cancer's awful and the treatment can kill you, too.

My brain hurts at all the ways this kind of thing can go horribly wrong. What if the treatment DID cause the kid's death? Can the parents sue? And what happens with the thousands of other decisions parents make on behalf of their kids every day? Do kids become wards of the state if their parents refuse antibiotics for ear infections or let their kids play violent video games?

I am looking at this from an emotional vantage point, and I understand that I am doing that. Please don't slam me for it!

I can see both sides of this argument and firmly believe that our government should be a small as possible and still keep the roads drivable (think Ayn Rand small). With that in mind, as someone who barely survived her own childhood, I morn for this kid. It upsets me to think that because his parents are stupid that he might not get the medical treatment needed to save his life.

We don't know the depth and breadth of his developmental problems, nor do we clearly understand the alternative treatment that his family is proposing. However, we do know that his parents are refusing a treatment that has a 90% or greater cure rate for a treatment that has no double blind studies and that despite his being treated in his way for a month, he is getting worse, where with the chemo he was getting better.

Are we saying that children are obligated to pay for the stupidity of the parents because we don't want to intrude on the parents rights? At what point do the kids have rights, and who has the right to advocate for them? (parents, doctors, teachers, lawyers...) That is the question we should be answering.

"And what happens with the thousands of other decisions parents make on behalf of their kids every day? Do kids become wards of the state if their parents refuse antibiotics for ear infections or let their kids play violent video games?"

There are other instances of decisions that parents make where the state steps in.

If a parent decides to make his child a sex toy, the state steps in. If a parent denies the child food and water, the state steps in.

If the parents let their kids play violent video games, the state doesn't step in.

IMO, denying your child standard medical treatment is closer to denying him food and water than letting him play video games.

Are we saying that children are obligated to pay for the stupidity of the parents because we don't want to intrude on the parents rights?

These are all good questions, and I'd be a liar if I said I was completely comfortable with my answer. I just don't have a better one.

Kids are obligated to pay for their parents' stupidity in countless ways every day. When my aunt got her first period, her mother told her she must have sat on a nail. She's lucky she wasn't knocked up by the time she was 14. My problem is is that government has never been able to draw a rational line.

It's decisions that cause a child's imminent death -- this would be criminal neglect, it seems -- where the state should step in.

Even this can be argued, which would make prosecution difficult. If the kid dies, how do we prove the kid wouldn't have died anyway? Even a 90 percent success rate leaves some room for failure. If you deprive a kid of food and water for long enough, he will die 100 percent of the time. I'm looking at the logistics of trying a case like this.

Also, cancer treatment is more than painful. My mother nearly died of an infection she picked up after chemo wiped out her immune system. If the kid has other health issues, I could easily see the parents making a successful case in front of a jury that they made the best decision they could under the circumstances.

Just keep gnawing the top off your biro in frustration as you dream your little eugenicist dreams?

It would be eugenics if I was advocating for rounding up and sterilizing the stupids. I'm not doing that. I'm merely advocating allowing them to refuse treatment so that their offspring die.

(You've made the same point four times in this thread already!)

That's because nobody's picked up on the obvious point.

There are people here who have argued quite passionately for legalizing assisted suicide. And now, those same people are arguing for PREVENTING an unassisted suicide.

Consider the cognitive dissonance you SHOULD be experiencing but are not. Then ask yourself why.

If this child were instead 62, would you support his declining of treatment? Were he in a (recoverable) coma, would you argue that his children ought to be able to deny him care?

I'm enjoying watching the same people who vehemently argue that doctors should be allowed, even required to assist people in ending their lives turn around and argue that the government ought to be allowed to force a child to live when he clearly has no desire to do so.

Personally, I think the government ought to stay out of it at both ends. If people kill off their children, why should I care?

"Second, if a family does not want their child saved, who are we to give a fuck?"

Gee, I don't know, maybe for the same reason we have a right to 'give a fuck' when a parent abuses, batters or attempts to murder their child? Or do you think all those are A-OK too?

"One of the reasons we find ourselves in the sorry situation we are in is that we coddle the weak and unworthy."

Oh, so you think Stephen Hawking - clearly 'genetically weak' in your overly-simplistic view - should have been left to die rather than get modern medical treatment?

Your entire concept and point of genetic weakness is moot anyway, because within the next few generations we will almost certainly have the technology to re-engineer our genes any way we damn well please. Your way of thinking about the "gene pool" will at that stage seem as primitive to future humans, as flat-earth and witchcraft beliefs are viewed now; weak genes in the "gene pool" will be irrelevant, so stop worrying.

"I wonder how many of you will think these types of treatments ridiculous and idiotic if you or a loved one learn of a life threatening illness"

My mom is facing a life-threatening uncurable illness and there's a good chance I've inherited it, and yet I still think these "types of treatments" are ridiculous and idiotic. I'm capable of understanding that the strength of my desire that these things should work is in no way connected to whether or not they will actually work.

Mouse, I am very sorry to hear about your Mother.

My comments were specifically directed towards the use of alternative medicine where Universal Healthcare would not provide you with any treatments during the crucial treatment period.

I think what these parents are doing is ridiculous, however, alternative medicine is given a bad wrap in my honest opinion.

I'm enjoying watching the same people who vehemently argue that doctors should be allowed, even required to assist people in ending their lives turn around and argue that the government ought to be allowed to force a child to live when he clearly has no desire to do so.
- brian

brian, perhaps you failed to notice that the child IS trying to treat the cancer with magic water, and 'natural' vitamin pills. So he obviously doesnt want to die

Mouse

Oh, so you think Stephen Hawking - clearly 'genetically weak' in your overly-simplistic view - should have been left to die rather than get modern medical treatment?

ALS is not genetic, and his parents (and he) chose to fight it with every available method. You'll note that he didn't turn away from pain and choose to commit certain suicide.

Please try reading it again and see if you can catch the subtle nuance.

brian, perhaps you failed to notice that the child IS trying to treat the cancer with magic water, and 'natural' vitamin pills. So he obviously doesnt want to die

An analogy: Your car doesn't stop well. A mechanic suggests fixing the brakes, but you can't bear to be without your car for a day. Instead, you pour a bottle of fancy water over the tires and burn incense in the ashtray.

Now, you could stop safely for a while and then die horribly, but that does not mean that the water and incense did anything.

By way of comparison, you can go the "alternative" route which is not proven to do anything to actually stop or reverse cancer. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll go into remission naturally. It's happened before.

But you're a fool to think it'll happen to you.

If you forgo proven treatment with a statistically significant survival rate in favor of an unproven one with no proven anything, you're as good as suicidal.

Mouse:

Gee, I don't know, maybe for the same reason we have a right to 'give a fuck' when a parent abuses, batters or attempts to murder their child? Or do you think all those are A-OK too?

It's not that I think it's A-OK, it's that I largely don't give a fuck unless it impacts society at large. If you beat your kid, there's a good chance he's going to be a criminal or at least a violent motherfucker. So there's at least a concrete argument for intervening.

But no such argument can be made in this case. If the "magic" treatment fails, he dies. Nobody else is impacted. You could try to make the argument that his death denies society anything interesting or useful he may have accomplished, but you can use the same argument against abortion.

And I don't think anyone wants to have that conversation, do they?

>>There's no weeding out of the defective any more.

>>We need to weed out some of the stupids if we are ever going to have another shot at liberty in this world.

no thanks, herr brian. you can keep your final solution.

> herr brian.

I didn't wanna do that for [A] fear of violating Godwin and [B] tawdriness. But it's nice to have it said. (And yes, I did get the hh thing.)

So let me get this straight.

I'm advocating letting people not get their child treated for cancer. I'm for letting stupid people take themselves out with meth.

And this, to you, is precisely the same as sterilizing blacks and slaughtering Jews?

Right. Next thing you know I'll be told I advocate mass murder because I want the seat-belt law repealed, and I want children to starve because I don't support universal health care.

Either reading comprehension here sucks, or the thought of not forcing an idiot couple to force their idiot child to live is repulsive to you.

And yet you'd think nothing of it if a 62 year old with the same exact cancer decided to "die with dignity" rather than undergo chemo.

You can attempt the Hitlerian comparisons all day long. Doesn't make them true. Because it doesn't represent even slightly what I said.

Our society has so many rules and regulations designed to protect stupid people from their own stupidity that they live too long now.

I bought a lamp. The first three feet of the cord had various and sundry warning stickers about all the ways to NOT use an electic lamp. IN THREE LANGUAGES.

If we stop doing that, and a few stupids take themselves out by drying their hair in the tub, where's the downside? Does that make me Hitler?

Here's a suggestion for you mr. h.h.

Learn to read. And if that doesn't work out for you, take a long hard look at your life. Perhaps you're a stupid. If so, then you'll want to pay particular attention the all the little stickers on your next lamp. They put them there for you.

This has been an interesting thread. I threw out my position to see what would happen. And it was either attacked or ignored.

Yet the very same position is taken by abortion advocates every. single. day.

The very same position is taken by euthanasia advocates as well.

Why should someone who is a burden, or who feels that life is a burden, be forced to live?

If you are offered a series of options, and you take the one with the least chance of success, do you not deserve what you get? If this was a 37 year old engineer from Boston rather than a learning-disabled 13 year old from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, would there be such excitement to force him to undergo chemotherapy?

You might want to try to think a little deeper before you whip out the Godwin stick next time.

"Are we saying that children are obligated to pay for the stupidity of the parents because we don't want to intrude on the parents rights?"

Can you say "abortion"? This one is just a little late ... .

> I threw out my position to see
> what would happen. And it was
> either attacked or ignored.

The mission–

Be interesting; not clever, not contrarian, not butch, not courageous, not pissy, not outlandish, not profane and not (per Jody) redundant.

Be interesting, Brian.

I think it's very interesting when people take a side in a cause that goes against everything they have ever said they believed, and they have absolutely no cognitive dissonance over it.

I guess I'm the only one.

"ALS is not genetic, and his parents (and he) chose to fight it with every available method. You'll note that he didn't turn away from pain and choose to commit certain suicide.

Please try reading it again and see if you can catch the subtle nuance."

Approximately 20% of familial ALS cases do have a genetic component. And apart from that, in your own words ("Why should someone who is a burden, or who feels that life is a burden, be forced to live"), he still would've been a *useless burden* --- nobody could've predicted he would turn out brilliant, so when he was small, if you'd been in charge, you would have said "let him die already, he's just a burden".