Religion claims another innocent victim
Dear Colleen Hauser,
To say that I am disheartened to read about your behaviour would be a huge understatement. An alert has gone out to police forces across the US to search for you after you left home with your cancer-stricken teenage son to avoid him receiving chemotherapy. Sadly, your decision is likely to end with your son dying – not because he was going to die anyway, rather that your ‘religious convictions’ mean that you don’t want him to receive the life-saving treatment that he so desperately requires.
Before you ran away, you had told a Minnesota judge that you wished to treat your son Daniel’s cancer with natural healing methods. However, you failed to attend a court hearing on Tuesday after an x-ray showed Daniel, 13, had a tumour in his chest. Doctors say he will probably die without conventional treatment. He has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemotherapy and radiation, but both you and Daniel’s father, Anthony, rejected chemotherapy after a single treatment, saying that putting toxic substances in his body violated your family’s religious convictions. Sheriff Rich Hoffmann in Brown County said that Anthony was co-operating with investigators as an arrest warrant was issued for you. “I just wish we could get to Colleen and tell her to come in,” said Sheriff Hoffmann. “This is not going to go away. It’s a court order.” Speaking at your family’s farm near Sleepy Eye, a town of 3,500 about 80 miles from Minneapolis, Anthony said you and Daniel had left without telling him your plans, and that he had not heard from you. He said he hoped you would either get Daniel treatment for his illness or would bring him home. “If he’s being cared for, and it’s going to help him, I think it’s going to be a good thing,” he said. Astonishingly, you said that you had been treating Daniel’s cancer with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionised water and other natural alternatives, having earlier told a judge you wished to treat the disease with methods advocated by an American Indian religious group known as the Nemenhah Band (the leader of which, incidentally, has openly disagreed with your decision to take Daniel away).
Even as an atheist, I think people’s right to freedom of expression is incredibly important when it comes to religion. You cannot have a free and open society unless people are allowed to express their views and ideas and worship whoever or whatever they want without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, your situation goes beyond this freedom in the sense that your practices are directly impacting on someone else’s life and you are infringeing on your own son’s liberty and wellbeing. Admittedly, I don’t know whether Daniel agreed to be taken away or whether you forced him to go with you. If he wishes to turn down treatment on religious grounds then the situation becomes a lot more complicated as I don’t know how much legal weighting the view of a 13-year-old has in making medical decisions. However, on the assumption that you have taken him away on the basis of your beliefs and wishes when his life is literally at stake, I find your actions extremely disturbing. Your son is going to die needlessly if you don’t get him to a hospital in the very near future. Your medicinal ignorance is going to kill him before too long. You have a legal and moral duty to protect and care for your child, just like every other parent, and I find it sickening that your actions might kill your son just because chemotherapy is unpleasant.
As a Conservative, I believe in individuals being allowed to make choices and for the state to stay out of people’s lives wherever possible. That said, when a child is being put at serious physical risk by a parent’s behaviour then I have no problem with the state stepping in and ensuring that this child gets the treatment that they need and deserve. I don’t care what religion you believe in and what holy book you subscribe to - what you are doing is tantamount to neglect and your abdication of the most basic parental responsibilities is very sad. I urge you to contact the police and your family, go home and let Daniel fight off this tragic disease.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Umm, its not just the yanks. You’ll find a fair bit of case-law relating to Jehovas Witnesses declining treatment and trying to withhold it from their kids over here too…
That does indeed sound familiar. I’m not 100% up to speed on the legal side of things, but to my mind this sort of behaviour from parents that puts their children at risk of death should come with heavy penalties.
A very sad story. Hope the mother sees sense soon
There is faith, and there is being a verifiable moronic lunatic. This is a fine example of the latter.
I find myself in two minds over this case. I have always believed that the rights of parents take priority when it comes to deciding what is best for the child until the child can makes decisions for itself. But take this to extreme and it sounds like I am advocating what happened to Baby P and I most certainly am not. So where does that boundary lie? It’s difficult to know when the state should step in.
For example, I will be bring up any children I have as vegetarian until they can make their own decisions and cook for themselves then they can do what they like. But this doesn’t put the child at risk of dying. So the state steps in to prevent children from abuse by their parents but I think these parents are doing what they think is best for the child – so are their rights for the child lower than that of the state?
I still don’t know what to think. But I do agree to some extent that conventional medicine can be of more harm than good when some things can be combated by eating the right things e.g. iron deficiency. However, this does not extend to things as serious as cancer. But who has a right to give that call for a child?
This is evidence of why bad ideas must be confronted. They are not victimless crimes, they adversely affect people. The MMR “sceptics” are likewise causing harm & we must not spare the feelings of the likes of Jeni Barnett & this woman in our assault on their falsehoods.
(I am referring to the battlefield of ideas, not saying owt specific about what should be done about this case).
I knew a 76 year old chap who was diagnosed with cancer and because his wife was into ‘natural healing’ aka crystal therapy, Chinese herbal crap, Indian chanting for healing and other such bilge, his once operable cancer became inoperable. Not only that but in the final weeks he was in so much pain but his wife refused to allow him to have drugs, just a few crystals around his body to heal his ‘aura’ and thus get rid of the pain. It did not work, so his children took him to A&E where he was given morphine and then he was placed in a hospice where he died a week later, in no pain and in peace.
The mumbo jumbo rubbish that many people believe will cure illnesses are fine for a headache or piles, but I cannot believe people think that prayer, crystals or chanting will ever cure a serious illness or keep cancer pain at bay. Barking!