I can’t arrive at a position about Starchild Abraham Cherrix.

He is a sixteen year old with Hodgkins cancer. He went through a round of chemotherapy which was debilitating. The chemo gave him a temporary reprieve but the cancer has returned. Even with aggressive treatment, recurring Hodgkins has a less than 50% survival rate. Things look grim. Rather than go through the hell of another round of chemotherapy, he decided to try an alternative medicine treatment that is largely diet-based. His parents have supported this choice and Accomack county has stepped in. They claim that the parents are negligent to allow the boy to refuse another round of treatment. A court case ensued in which social services tried to force the lad to undergo chemotherapy. Yesterday, a judge allowed Cherrix to continue down the path of his choice.

On one hand, I am a strong supporter of an individual’s right to make choices about his or her life. A woman at my church has decided to stop chemotherapy because the odds were grim even with the chemo and she didn’t want to spend her last months nauseated. My grandmother did the same thing. When the doctors discovered a grapefruit sized tumor in her uterus, the 90 year old thanked them and then went home to die on her own terms. I think I would do the same if I was 90 and the kids were grown. Right now, I’d fight on with even a 1% chance of survival because I have an obligation to my children - being there.

The problem with being a supporter of individual rights is that the kid is a minor. He is 16 and seems thoughtful and well-spoken in the coverage I have seen. 18 is an arbitrary cut-off, but it is the cut-off for adulthood that we usually accept.

I also support a parent or next-of-kin’s right to make medical decisions when the person can’t make a decision for themselves. If we assume that Abraham can’t make decisions as a minor, then my default position would be to accept the parent’s decision. I certainly don’t think that a bureaucrat ought to step in and decide. Longtime readers of this blog will remember the Schiavo case and my abhorrence of government meddling. Of course, unlike Abraham, Terri was already dead. Abraham has a certain percentage chance of living if he takes the chemo.

While respecting parental rights, I do think the state has a right to step in - in narrow circumstances. A six-year old from a Christian Science family with a ruptured appendix ought not to die because we defer to his parent’s religious convictions. A couple of years ago, a local Pentacostal preacher was bitten by a rattlesnake while snake-handling in the pulpit. Rather than rush him to the hospital, the congregation prayed with him for a cure until he died. Now, as an adult I’ll respect his right to refuse treatment. But if the rattler had jumped out of the pulpit and bit a three year old who then died because her parents sat around and prayer for divine intervention, I’d charge the parents with negligent homicide. Imagine a five year old Jehovah’s Witness who could be saved by a simple blood transfusion refused by his parents.

These things aren’t black and white - life is a grey-scale continuum. I’ll confess that Abraham, with his relatively advanced age pushes toward the white side (allowing him and his parents to make their own decision). The fact that he might have an almost even chance of survival with chemo pushes us towards the black (state intervention). The fact that it would be a societal problem if we encourage the development of a second-guessing nanny state (Bill Frist nonwithstanding) pushes us back toward the white - not out of consideration of Abraham’s interests but to protect us all from interventionist politicians.

One thing that does make me lean towards te black is that their alternative treatment is just plain hokey. I may be a redneck agrarian with no medical knowledge, but I suspect that abstaining from sugar ain’t gonna stop the cancer cells. Although I think their choice is, well, dumb, it is their choice - but I contradict myself once again - wasn’t I just willing to override the choices of Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Snake-Handlers?

So I give up.

Count me as indecisive and squishy.

What do the loyal minions think? Should the judge have forced Abraham to get chemo?