Since
my highly demanding life and other aspiring aspirations have kinda
sorta kept me from blogging, maybe I ought to catch you up on all
things I think.
Let's start with the story out of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, where the issue of parents' rights is at stake.
There are a lot of variables to consider in this episode involving a 13-year-old boy with Stage 2B Hodgkin's lymphoma and his mother's initial refusal to treat him with chemotherapy. The doctor involved in the treatment reported that he had upwards of an 80 to 90 percent chance of survival with treatment and less than five percent without. I'll give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that he is well-meaning in reporting the mother to the authorities on the grounds of child neglect, but that doesn't give society the right to force people to do what they object to doing--particularly with their minor children.
I had the same view during the Elian Gonzalez story, that even if we felt collectively that the boy's father would return Elian to Cuba as a ward of the state, it was his right to do so. These are private issues of conscience and should not be group-thought toward solution. When we call out the dogs on something that appears to be a matter of life and death we invariably unravel lesser concerns, that are tied to the same rights. We can not whittle down a parent's right to make informed decisions about the welfare, education, and development of their children--even if most people agree on the substance of that decision. We are losing these rights in our country, and it's time it stopped.
