Judicial Malpractice

Once again, courts are forcing medical treatment on people. A thirteen year old boy has cancer that he and he family prefer to treat with alternative medicine. I am a real libertarian on this issue. For one thing, the medical profession is misguided and self-deceptive about cancer treatment. At best, it is a torturous extreme that might extend life. At worst, and most often, it is a torturous extreme that makes the end of life a misery.
My brother-in-law, Ken, had a deadly melanoma removed about fifteen years ago. Instead of a chemo follow-up, his doctor put him in a test group for a new cancer treatment. Ten years later, cancer free, I remarked how great it was that modern medicine found a less painful alternative to chemo. Ken replied that the shots he had received were painful, and it turned out that he was getting a placebo.
So doctors are willing to forego chemo if it suits them, and patients can survive without it.
Most treatments for cancer are experimental, but that isn’t the only reason that I am against forcing treatment on someone.
Aunt Ada lived for ninety years as an avid Christian Scientist. She refused to even visit a dentist. When she was totally debilitated by a stroke, there was no alternative but to put her in a nursing home. The catch was, she could only stay there if she took medication. A flustered family agreed. What else could they do?
Then came months of the attendants finding ways to trick or force Ada into taking medication. Finally, they decided to put the medication in applesauce. Ahh, they thought, we tricked her. And for many months afterwards Ada grinned with joy when someone appeared with a medicine cup.
I didn’t think it was right to trick her into doing something that she was absolutely opposed to, but it turns out that she didn’t live ninety years by being a fool. I was visiting one day when the applesauce came. Ada, smiled sweetly, so eager to eat the treat, then wiped her mouth with a tissue as the attendant walked away. She was unable to talk, but the look in her eye was worth a thousand words as she leaned towards me and unfolded the tissue to reveal the pill that she had spit out. I gloated with her.
And by the way, remember I mentioned that she wouldn’t go to a dentist? After she died, the family was flabbergasted to be asked what they wanted done with her dentures. It didn’t occur to them that the set of perfect, pearly white teeth were all hers.
The medical community is willing to bully, trick, and extort to make people do what they want, but that isn’t why I’m against forcing treatment on someone.
The simple fact is this. Individuals have a right to decide how they want to live and die. If a child is too young to decide for himself, then we must trust the parents to do what they think is best. Sometimes treatment is crueler than the disease. Only the ones directly involved have the right to decide what they are able to tolerate. The courts should stay out of it.
Nancy Sherer