Not Forcing Your Kids To Read My Column, Now That's Neglect

Posted by Joshua White on 07.26.2006

The parents of a 16 year old boy are not forcing him to get traditional medical treatment for his illness. Is that neglect?



It was 2003 when L'il John and the Ying Yang Twins came out with the masterpiece of hip hop "Shake It Like A Salt Shaker." This song changed the world. Girls started shaking their "salt shakers" on the dance floor and guys like me went home pissed that we didn't have get their meat salted. The radio stations played it nonstop. I heard a song that is ridiculously repetitious more than once daily. I heard it so much that the chorus got stuck in my head for days at a time. It was around this time that I started looking for an alternative to crap radio that played the same songs all the time. I began listening to talk radio and because Pacifica Radio (the liberalist of liberal radio stations) is terrible, not just in ideas but in programing, I began listening to conservative talk radio.

God I hated that song.

I soon found Sean Hannity. And since then I've often wished that there was a better talk show on during his time-slot. He's incredibly redundant and annoyingly biased. It would be great if one time he would let both the conservative and the liberal talk for the same amount of time. But no. It is just like on tv, he let's the one with whom he agrees talk endlessly and then he silences those with which he disagrees. However, today he brought a story to my attention that is actually pretty interesting. And that is what this week's column will discuss. (If you're wondering why I told you about my introduction into talk radio then I would tell you that I couldn't think of another way to start the column.)

On yesterday's show Hannity discussed a 16 year old boy named Abraham Cherrix. Cherrix has Hodgkin's disease, a disease that attacks the lymph nodes (which make and store white blood cells). Without medical treatment he will die. With chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the National Cancer Institute claims that he has a 75% chance of being cured. Cherrix, knowing all of this information, has decided that he doesn't want traditional treatment. Instead he'll treat his ailment with alternative therapies.

Under normal circumstances this wouldn't be that strange or interesting. If I have a disease, it should be up to me how I wish to treat myself. Typically, this is an easy decision to make. I simply follow what the doctor suggests. But this is not that kind of situation. Cherrix is not an adult. He is still a minor. As a minor he doesn't get to make all the choices that adults do.

This fact is obvious enough. We don't let children vote. We don't let children smoke, run for office, get surgery without parental notification, not go to school, etc. Sure, kids have some amount of free-will, but only when his parents allow for it. This ensures that their life goes as well as possible. This is why, when kids protest, we still give them shots, medicine, and surgeries.

Here's where the story gets even more interesting. If this were any other story Cherrix's parents would say "tough luck kid, you're going to chemo." Cherrix's parents aren't typical. They have decided that their son is old enough and smart enough to refuse the medical community's advice. Young Cherrix wants to go the alternative route.

Once Social Services found out that the adult Cherrixes would permit their boy to deny traditional medicine they intervened. They charged the parents with neglect. Defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one definition of neglect is the "failure to provide or allow needed care in accord with recommendations of a competent health care professional for a physical injury, illness, medical condition, or impairment." Following this definition, the Cherrix parents are indeed neglecting their son.

The question now becomes, should Cherrix's parents be punished. From a legal perspective, if not going the traditional route is found to be neglect, then of course they should be punished.

A more interesting question, as far as I'm concerned (and that is what matters), is what should be done from a moral perspective. Or should what the Cherrixes are doing be considered illegal in the first place?

There is part of me that considers children to be property. They are owned by the parents. I mean, you and your partner take pieces of yourself and make something else. Nobody else but you could own that which you have made. If you cut off your own hair and make a hair sculpture (a la Slackers) it would be yours right? Of course it would be. You took part of you and made something. It should be yours. Part of me feels the same way about children. That is not to say that you always own your kids. Eventually, their own autonomy and rationality force their self-ownership.

If this view is right, then parents can do what they want with their kids at least for a while. Maybe they can't cause pain for no reason. Children have some rights. But for the most part, the parents can run their lives as they would like. This leads me to believe that if the parents want to allow the kid to pursue non-traditional medicine, then that is their right.

Yet, there seems to be limits. I'm not sure that I want to allow (or say that it is moral) for parents to totally medicate their kids themselves. "Hey, she's in pain. Let's give her some opium." There have to be some guidelines to parenting if only to remind people who don't know how or what they should be doing with their children.

I think that the problem, my loyal followers, is that it is very difficult to adequately define "neglect" or to say what line a parent must cross in order to be considered a bad parent (in the legal or moral sense). Perhaps it should be judged on a case by case basis.

So, for one of the first times in my short history of being a highly valued, widely read, and greatly admired 411 writer I don't have a clear opinion on the topic of my column. For what it's worth though, I'm leaning more to the side of neglect. Maybe it isn't neglect per se, but I don't think that a 16 year old should really be making all of his own medical decisions. I'm sure that he is a bright, well-informed kid. That isn't enough for me. Life experience means a lot too sometimes. Most people would realize that a 75% chance of survival and cure is a very good reason to try traditional medicine. As a parent you should realize that even though the kid doesn't want to go to these treatments, and has other plans, those aren't good enough reasons not to go to chemo.

On the other hand, I don't know if these parents should titled neglectful. I'm sure that they have provided everything that this boy needs. They will be doing more now that he needs therapy for his illness. Can one thing that we disagree with be a litmus test for neglect? Are all Christian Scientists neglecting their children when they don't take their children to the doctor out of religious reasons?

When it comes to neglect I'm just not sure who to define it or see it when it is there. I would really like to hear what you have to say about this issue. Should the child have the right to decide for himself? Should the state intervene and force the boy to undergo the treatment? Do you think that the Cherrix family is negelecting (in the legal sense) their son? If the Cherrixes forced their kid to listen to "Shake it Like a Salt Shaker" would that be neglect?

Email me and let me know your viewpoint.


Until next time…believe nothing unless you read it here.