Cancer Patient Seized by State of Texas

[DPDarkPrimus]

See, I really hate 'yellow' journalism like this. The first article out has a bare minimum of facts that leads to people drawing all sorts of conclusions that are eventually revealed false. The second, more thorough, article reveals that: A) they weren't shopping for a "second" opinion as they already had three, B) they had repeatedly interfered with treatments in the past, and C) this included refusing a blood transfusion.

I think it's fairly clear we're dealing with a pair of asshats here, and the state was well within it's authority to take custody.

At the risk of thread-jacking, though, why the fuck can't journalists just wait until they have enough information to write a story? It seems like everyone's out to get the bleeding-edge news, without a care for whether they actually have any info or not. And then it just confuses people who read their work.

This is exactly why, when I read an article and see vague statments, I hold off on making judgement.

[wolveraptor]

Okay, what do we know?

1. She's not in remission.

2. Any further treatments are likely to result in a reduced quality of life.

3. The doctors aren't communicating well with the parents/the parents are really stupid.

4. The parents object to the treatment because they think the cancer is in remission, even though they have no medical experience to judge this.

It seems to me like the parents are being assholes right about here. Unless they actually believe that their daughter's quality of life would be so bad that it would be preferrable to die, they shouldn't be refusing treatment. And even then, only the daughter, who is twelve, can choose to have euthanasia or not. I doubt it'd be legal in Texas though.

[Broomstick]

Euthansia of any sort is legal only in Oregon, and even that is somewhat debatable. Withholding of treatment is legal everywhere in the US, but when a minor is involved it gets complicated, as we see here.

With the caveat that we know the articles are not telling the whole story, the father's assertion that the inability to conceive her own children is somehow a fate worse than death for his daughter is wacko. If that's true, he's an asshat. On the other hand, we have no proof that is his actual stance on the matter.

[tharkûn]

I might sympathize with the parents here, as Broom already pointed out either the parents are utter idiots, the doctors are not communicating well, or both. Most people haven't the knowledge to know what Hodgkin's looks like, the doctors are failing to get the right information into the parent's heads,

From what I can see this is not a case of religion vs medicine, but ignorance vs medicine. In our hospital's religion and medical practices guide, Churches of God are Pentecostal which are listed as active recipients of blood transfusions and potential organ donors.

The stipulation about the mother being the only acceptable blood donor makes me think they are afraid of catching a bloodborn pathogen through transfusion and that the mother is a compatible blood type (which would be why the father is not included). That is fairly common, many people remember the horror stories of hemophillia and AIDS and know nothing about the advances made in bloody safety since. So far as I know such restrictions, so long as they are not imposed when time is critical, are perfectly valid. For red blood cells this should not be a major issue assuming you are talking about a reliable blood bank, but I have zero doubt that the average layman confuses the risks, benifits, and implications of whole blood vs red blood cells.

Blood cancers are not like other cancers as treatment and symptoms are not localized. It sounds like we might have a case of partial remission, possibly even complete symptomatic relief. In such cases you'd be negligent NOT to get further opinions before dosing out the radiation. Granted with this many second opinions, assuming they are independent, it is an extremely safe bet that radiation is the lesser of evils - however given that communication has already broken down somewhere I can see how this problem can crop up.

Let's face it the kid's parents have just watched their daughet's life expectancy take a massive hit, she's likely going or gone bald, her energy level is shot to hell, gut purging vomitting is quite likely, and of course we have lost sleep, completely disrupted life ... and you expect people who most likely know as much medicine as was covered in high school to readily accept that their daughters needs to be burned by radiation when an obvious communication gap exists? It could turn out that they were willfully ignorant and morons, it could just as easily come out that they were scared, tired, and ignorant. The former is completely reprehensible, the latter is tragic, but more understable.