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But the death rate from other diseases is not going down. The main causes of death and their proportions have remained constant for the past 30+ years:
heart disease
cancer
lower respiratory:
stroke
accidents
Its pretty hard to have a discussion with someone who doesn't know the facts.
Here's the first fact:
1. Deaths from heart disease have declined from 307.4 per 100,000 people in 1950 to 134.6 per 100,000 people in 1996. That's over 50%
In fact, deaths from all the sources you have indicated have declined as well. I'm really trying to understand your overall point, if you even have one. Is your point that we shouldn't be bothered trying to lower the death rate from any of these diseases or calamities?
Last edited by markg91359; 08-12-2016 at 03:02 PM..
While it is true that at some point, she will be able to make her own decision about this, my perspective is this: My husband had Hodgkins disease, diagnosed at age 17. He suffered through 4 years of chemo, but he was cured, and lived to be 65. (He died of an unrelated cause.) He got an education, a carrier, a wife, he got to be a father and had a wonderful life full of all kinds of adventures. He was VERY grateful that he was given a second shot at life. The chemo now has a much lower rate of nausea and side effects, and it is much more effective. Since there is such a high cure rate, to me it is an obvious decision. Of course, people can decide not to be treated, but for a very young person to deny themselves a life - it seems like suicide to me.
The girl is seventeen which renders her short of her legal majority. Under the law, a minor does not have the right to determine what medical treatment they receive. Seventeen is close, but is not eighteen years of age when she could make this decision on her own.
Minors are not allowed to decide to if they can go to school or not. They are not allowed to vote, to drink, or to smoke. The system operates on the assumption they are incompetent to make the most important decisions on their own and requires these decisions be made in accordance with a legal framework. I submit that this life and death decision is too critical to be left to someone who has not reached their majority.
The article states that she has Hodgkins Lymphoma and that with the treatment she has an 85% chance of survival. Without the treatment, she is virtually certain to die. If the cure rate were not so high, you might persuade me that this decision should not be forced. Eighty-five percent chance of a cure though tells me that this should not be option.
I don't believe in alternative medical treatments. In fact, I even object to the use of the word "treatment" when they are described. Unless a certain course of therapy can be shown to be effective it does not deserve and should not receive the label "treatment". I believe that people should receive those medical treatments which have been scientifically proven to work.
A real tip off for me was the comment about not wanting all that "poison" in her. It sounds she and her mother have been lied to and perhaps brainwashed by practitioners of alternative medicine.
Jill Stein, perhaps?
Seriously though, Hodgkins Lymphoma is very receptive to medical treatment. It's generally a much better diagnosis than non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The survival rate is very high.
I can't imagine choosing death over chemo, and I don't think teen-agers should be permitted to choose death over treatment.
She could live a happy life after her course(s) with chemo or whatever drug is chosen.
Chemical therapy is the poisoning of the whole body in an attempt to get the cancer to abandon the host...if the cancer does not kill you the chemo might. This treatment of cancer will in time be looked upon as primative..much like bleeding someone in the old days was considered helpful.
The reality is the body of the child is the property of the parents and the child...the state does not own anyone nor does the medical establishment.
It's medical kidnapping. If she and her family discussed her choice and agreed then it's medical kidnapping and forever wrong.
Does the state or the doctor own your children? Beware cuz they think they do.
People do not understand that governments and certain institutions view the general population as cattle and they are the ranchers and humans are a resource for them to utilize. We are not the property of the state. We are not cattle...we are free individual autonomous beings...they can kiss my old butt....
In Canada what used to be called assisted suicide is now called assisted death. My dentist like me were laughing at the fact that we were part of the aging baby boomers - a huge demographic of what will become the a great burden on society....and that the timing of the assisted death legislation was oh so convenient when it comes to getting rid of us aging ones....The legislators act like they are assisting us and are oh so kind and helpful...when in reality we are about to enter a genocide regarding the aging...
Oh well they can get lost...no one controls me but me...
Seriously though, Hodgkins Lymphoma is very receptive to medical treatment. It's generally a much better diagnosis than non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The survival rate is very high.
I can't imagine choosing death over chemo, and I don't think teen-agers should be permitted to choose death over treatment.
She could live a happy life after her course(s) with chemo or whatever drug is chosen.
So you are essentially saying if you don't want to be forced into a medical procedure with risks including death then don't go to the doctor.
A 16 year old is very capable of talking with her parents, doing research, and coming up with what SHE is willing to endure.
Do you want someone to tell you that you HAVE to endure the side effects of Chemo? Whether you agree with her alternative choice of intervention... the state nor the doctors nor you have to endure her pain. the state nor the doctors nor you have the right to make her live. It's medical and government over reach.
This is not an isolated case either. There are hundreds if not thousands of these stories.
Once your kid is a ward of the state, you lose your right to all medical decisions. They can put them in clinical trials for new drugs, use experimental drugs, place them in a foster home, and even put them up for adoption. And simply because you questioned what they are doing to your child...
So you are essentially saying if you don't want to be forced into a medical procedure with risks including death then don't go to the doctor.
A 16 year old is very capable of talking with her parents, doing research, and coming up with what SHE is willing to endure.
Do you want someone to tell you that you HAVE to endure the side effects of Chemo? Whether you agree with her alternative choice of intervention... the state nor the doctors nor you have to endure her pain. the state nor the doctors nor you have the right to make her live. It's medical and government over reach.
This is not an isolated case either. There are hundreds if not thousands of these stories.
Once your kid is a ward of the state, you lose your right to all medical decisions. They can put them in clinical trials for new drugs, use experimental drugs, place them in a foster home, and even put them up for adoption. And simply because you questioned what they are doing to your child...
That is plain evil.
Cassie was not able to convince the Court that she was capable of making life and death decisions for herself.
Would you not try to keep her from putting a gun to her head and killing herself? Should she have the "right" to do that?
So you are essentially saying if you don't want to be forced into a medical procedure with risks including death then don't go to the doctor.
A 16 year old is very capable of talking with her parents, doing research, and coming up with what SHE is willing to endure.
Do you want someone to tell you that you HAVE to endure the side effects of Chemo? Whether you agree with her alternative choice of intervention... the state nor the doctors nor you have to endure her pain. the state nor the doctors nor you have the right to make her live. It's medical and government over reach.
This is not an isolated case either. There are hundreds if not thousands of these stories.
Once your kid is a ward of the state, you lose your right to all medical decisions. They can put them in clinical trials for new drugs, use experimental drugs, place them in a foster home, and even put them up for adoption. And simply because you questioned what they are doing to your child...
That is plain evil.
Conspiracy claptrap.
Only a person who has extremely little knowledge of the way our legal system works would make such a comment.
Minor children, under our system, are treated as persons "without capacity" or "under disability". Medical decisions are ordinarily in the hands of their parents or guardians. The right to parent children is a right protected by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. In order to deprive parents of this right, a judicial proceeding has to take place and if parents cannot afford legal counsel than counsel has to be appointed for them.
The right is not an absolute right though. Parents don't have a right to neglect or abuse their children.
In a case like this, there has to be an assertion of medical neglect. The assertion would be that the parents failed to obtain proper medical treatment for a child after having been informed that such treatment was necessary. The matter has to be heard before a judge. The judge would have to be make series of findings. I haven't read the opinion in the case, but I can pretty much guarantee you that the findings would have to look something like this:
1. That a minor suffers from such and such disease or medical condition.
2. That such medical condition will not get better on its own.
3. That the medical condition poses a grave and imminent risk to the life of the child.
4. The effective treatment exists under our medical system for that condition.
5. That the effectiveness of the treatment is well known and can be shown through medical studies and articles that appear in reputable medical journals.
6. That the child's parent or guardian has been informed of the condition and the treatment and has rejected it.
7. That the parent or guardian has been given an opportunity to explain why they have not availed themselves of this treatment.
8. That the parent has failed to show that there is alternative treatment which would be just as effective and can be proven in the same scientific manner.
Think about what you said above
"Your child is a ward of the state". Not unless you neglect them and a court determines so in a hearing.
"You lose all right to medical decisions". I think if a guardian could come back to court later and show that better treatment was available and that could be scientifically proven, the court would have to modify its order. Plus, once a minor is cured, the power to make medical decisions would ordinarily revert back to the parent or guardian.
"They can put them into clinic trials for new drugs or experimental drugs". BS. This can't happen because the fact that the drug is experimental or in clinical trials means its not approved as treatment and that inadequate scientific data exists to require someone to submit to that drug. This is just nonsensical scare tactic.
"They can put them in a foster home". Any parent who neglects or abuses their child can have this happen to their child and rightfully so.
"They can put them up for adoption". Termination of parental rights in our society is rare and difficult. Courts are far more willing to allow children to be placed temporarily in foster care. Termination of parental rights ordinarily requires a showing of long term abuse or neglect in which the parents had opportunities to change their behavior and refused to do so. In reality, many children languish in foster homes all over this country because of the difficulty and reluctance of our system to terminate parental rights even in cases of blatant abuse and neglect.
My advice to you is to go read about the foster care crisis. You'll see plenty about states that cannot terminate parental rights because of the high level of proof required and limited resources to do so.
So you are essentially saying if you don't want to be forced into a medical procedure with risks including death then don't go to the doctor.
A 16 year old is very capable of talking with her parents, doing research, and coming up with what SHE is willing to endure.
Do you want someone to tell you that you HAVE to endure the side effects of Chemo? Whether you agree with her alternative choice of intervention... the state nor the doctors nor you have to endure her pain. the state nor the doctors nor you have the right to make her live. It's medical and government over reach.
This is not an isolated case either. There are hundreds if not thousands of these stories.
Once your kid is a ward of the state, you lose your right to all medical decisions. They can put them in clinical trials for new drugs, use experimental drugs, place them in a foster home, and even put them up for adoption. And simply because you questioned what they are doing to your child...
That is plain evil.
So what YOU are essentially saying is a 16 year old MINOR CHILD should have the right to refuse life saving treatment because they are afraid of POSSIBLE side effects??????
That lack of mature reasoning was evidence enough that this CHILD was not capable of making an adult, informed, rational decision about her own health...
So 90% chance of death but NO side effects vs 85% chance of cure and POSSIBLE side effects....while an adult can certainly make that foolish choice a CHILD cannot.
The only point of contention in this original argument centers around age of maturity....
A 16 year old can't legally buy cigarettes, alcohol, vote, get a license (state dependent on age), join the military, work or drive after certain hours, go to an R movie alone etc etc etc...
But according to you, that same 16 year old that our society has clearly stated is not ready for most "adult" activities/rights/privileges etc should be able to refuse life saving treatment??
Nope...sorry
As for your ridiculous rant about "medical kidnapping" pure nonsense not even worthy of retort...
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