AllHealthcare

They run the banks ,car companys,why not this.Hey , I got an idea,let's rename Washington D.C. STALINGRAD.

A look at history provides some insight into this little conundrum. One of the greatest expositions in modern history that expressed what it means to be a moral agent on this planet was the Nuremberg trials of post WWII. Fraught with controversy, for the most part the defendants were afforded our classical Judeo-Christian standard of jurisprudence known as due process. One of the components of due process is to notify the defendant of the reasons why they are going to receive the punishment that has been concluded. The just over eight hundred Germans alone who were sentenced to the gallos were told this: They were going to hang for what they did, reason number 1, reason number 2, they were going to hang for what they didn't do. The words of a 12th century philosopher by the name of Thomas Aquinas were used as the moral justification for said punishment. And he said, every human being has a higher and greater moral obligation to the extent that you do not participate in any process that denies, absconds with sweeps under the rug, steals or hijacks that minimal level, that modicum of dignity and respect that everyone is entitled to even if that means sacrificing your own ass. In other words they were told that they had a duty to do something as in desert, aid and abet the enemy, shoot their commanding officer in the head. Of all those actions that would have clearly put them on the road to high moral ground they chose the road of abject cowardice and did nothing. And for that they hung. 

Well,this may sound awkward but I think that only minors should be forced into care and that's in context that a minor is a child depending on their care takers opinion,what's good or what's bad for them.Considering the above story,the judge was wrong to force the boy's parents without hearing them out about the other tretment options and may be the question of inadequte funding.Here in Africa so many people,mostly children die from cancers mainly due to the high cost of chemotherapeutic drugs and some can't even access care or evaluation (lab)tests.Bengo.D.

I think they've given up and succombed to what the government wants. I can only hope the chemo actually makes a difference.

There are two issues at play here in my opinion.

First is what the reasonable efficacy of any mandated treatment can be expected to be.

Second is that no matter what people want to say, in this particular case the child is a minor, and not legaly able to make decisions for himself ... therefore leading to the question:  Are the parents being responsible or negligent in the choices that they are making for him. . . .  And let's not get it twisted, almost all 13 year olds who say they don't want traditional treatment who are not simply asking to die, are asking for the alternative mumbo jumbo becaues their parents put it in their head, not because they are mature enough to think of it themselves.

To those two points I would make example.

First with a cancer such as lymphoma, I would expect the course of treatment to be less likely to succede than in a stage 1 skin cancer such as the one that ultimately killed Bob Marley.  If the treatment is not likely to cure the person anyway, then mandating it becomes a gray zone.  However mandating someone have a cancerous mole removed is less of a head scratcher.

Following this same train of thought we come to the issue of the child's competence to make decisions and the level of responsibility shown by the parents vs. that insisted uppon by the judge.

In an end stage cancer with little hope of recovery anyway, then perhaps mandating a long drawn out, uncomfortable course of treatment may be viewed as equaly irresponsible, and the matter becomes fuzzy.  However if it were as simple as removing a 1 cm patch of skin and the child would live a long healthy life, and the parents refused, then I think many more people would take side against the parents.

In Bob Marley's case, he was a full grown adult with full knowledge of his own philosophy, religious beliefs, and his options.  He chose not to treat a highly treatable form of cancer.  He chose to die.

This is not a choice that should be left in the hands of someone who is unable to truely consider their options.  And sometimes when a guardian is not acting in the best interest of a minor it is appropriate to remove that choice from them.

I just wanted to point out some of the underlying considerations.  My own oppinion is that it was the right thing to do, but that's largely because I have no patience for parents who parade their religious views around at the expense of their childrens well being, not because I have a particular oppinon or knowledge about the efficacy of the alternatives that they were considering.