By SHAUNA ANDERSON
There is no doubt that the mother loves her daughter.
There is no doubt that all she wants is her dying 11-year old to survive, to overcome the sickness and suffering of the past year.
What has been in dispute has never been this mother’s love, but instead the choices she has made for what she believes is the best interest of her child.
A landmark ruling in Canada has seen a judge side with the family of an aboriginal girl who sought to treat their 11-year old daughter who has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with traditional healing rather than mainstream medicine.
The hospital had fought to force the girl into chemotherapy.
The Globe and Mail report that with chemotherapy the girl, known as ‘JJ’, has a 90 to 95 per cent chance of survival.
Without it, she will die.
The judge, Ontario Court Justice Gethin Edward rejected the hospital’s bid instead referring to the Canadian Charter of Rights, which enshrines aboriginal rights that existed prior to contact with Europeans when making his ruling.
“I cannot find that (the girl) is a child in need of protection when her (mother) has chosen to exercise her constitutionally-protected right to pursue their traditional medicine over the (doctors’) stated course of treatment of chemotherapy”
After being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that arises in the bone marrow in August, JJ initially began treatment.
Ten days in to the 32-day treatment plan her mother pulled her out. She wrote in an open letter to a native newspaper that she did not want her daughter treated with “poison” and would take her to a holistic healing centre in Florida and pursue aboriginal healing instead reports The Globe and Mail.
This is where the hospital stepped in trying to get child welfare services to intervene, but they refused.
The hospital took the welfare agency to court.
In his ruling on Friday the Judge said that
“It is this court’s conclusion therefore, that D.H.’s decision to pursue traditional medicine for her daughter, J.J., is her aboriginal right. Further, such a right cannot be qualified as a right only if it is proven to work by employing the Western medical paradigm. To do so would be to leave open the opportunity to perpetually erode aboriginal rights.”
Peter Fitzgerald, the president of McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton told The Globe and Mail that the decision was concerning.
“We’ve made it very clear from the beginning that without conventional therapy there is no chance of survival,”
“We have been open to the combination of traditional therapy with conventional medical therapy. But we have no reason to believe that the patient will survive the disease without conventional therapy.”
The girl JJ will now be treated with slippery elm and turkey rhubarb root.
Instead of chemotherapy her mother is preparing her medicines on her stove. And this fact is being applauded as ground-breaking.
Brant Family and Children’s Services executive director Andrew Koster – from the children’s welfare agency that the hospital sued told The Star that he was proud to be part of a decision that furthered aboriginal rights.
“I’m glad out of a tragic situation we have certain rights confirmed.”
The case paves the way for anther First Nations girl, Makayla Sault to pursue traditional medicine.
Makayla’s case gained recognition when she released a YouTube video describing why she had rejected traditional medicine for her cancer.
The Star reports that Makayla’s father – a pastor had withdrawn her from chemotherapy after seeing a vision of Christ in her hospital room telling her she was already healed.
According to The Star both girls have sought treatment at an alternative health centre costing $18,000.
The centre is registered as a massage establishment and run by a nutrition counsellor. “It promotes a positive attitude, eating a raw-plant-based organic diet and ridding your life of contaminants to heal cancer. It believes in curing cancer with a positive attitude as well as eating a raw plant-based organic diet and clearing your life of contaminants. “
The ruling has been celebrated by Aboriginal groups in Canada but condemned by many others.
The Star writes:
“The Friday ruling has nothing to do with whether aboriginal medicine works. Family court heard unequivocally in the case of a First Nations girl refusing chemotherapy that no child has survived acute lymphoblastic leukemia without treatment.
Instead, it’s about Canada’s Constitution protecting aboriginal rights.”
While an editorial in The Globe and Mail says
“The decision is appalling and cries out for reversal. It is tainted by an overwrought defensiveness about the value of aboriginal culture. It runs counter to the traditions of Canada, whose statutes and court rulings have consistently placed the protection of children above the rights and personal beliefs of parents. And it leaves any rational person aghast.”
“It is hard to believe that anyone could be so determined to protect a right that they cannot see the agony J.J. will endure. Without chemotherapy, a young girl’s life is going to be ended by an entirely treatable medical condition.”
What do you think should parents be able to choose the line of medical treatment a child receives? Should constitutional rights be an issue in a child’s treatment?
Top Comments
I agree with the judge's decision. The judge made that decision based on the legal rights of Aboriginal people in Canada to engage in traditional cultural practices. This must be upheld and if they were to rule in favour of the hospital it would be setting a precedent for other organisations to dictate to Indigenous people how they must live their lives. I'm sure people can see by looking in our own backyard, how that could be very dangerous for Indigenous Canadians?
I don't agree with the parents' decision. I really feel for them as I 100% believe they are making this decision out of complete love for their daughter. Heartbreaking. I really really hope the 'dr' they are seeing has at least some knowledge about what he's doing, and some moral compass that ensures he will be honest with the parents if it isn't working the way he hoped so they can pursue Western healing.
While "alternative medicine" is still legally sold and practiced in this country (much of it at very high prices at your nearest pharmacy), I don't see how we can express dismay or disgust at anyone who assumes science might be wrong and witchcraft might be legitimate.
After all, surely if alternative remedies like homeopathy, that defy chemistry and physics, didn't work, our TGA would stop pharmacies selling it as medicine, wouldn't it? If magnetic bracelets that defy common sense (iron in blood is not magnetic) didn't work, they wouldn't be allowed to advertise them on TV, would they? If reiki was the quasi-religious nonsense it clearly appears to be, you wouldn't see ads for practitioners in your local paper, would you?
In short, as much as I wished people had a better understanding of science, and reality in general, I don't think we can blame desperate parents for believing in things our regulators allow to be advertised as if they work.
Yup, and the thing is, many of the things people blow their money on don't even promise results. Working in a pharmacy, so much 'natural health' bollocks has phrases like 'may help with *insert illness here*. I mean, technically it may help you to fly, but the likelihood is extremely low, and if people actually scrutinized these alternative treatments (to the degree they distrust western medicine) they'd realise that most of them have no clinical trials backing them up. But then you try telling them this, or try telling them that recent studies actually indicate this stuff has little to no effect, and they throw their money away anyway.
So many people spending hundreds on alternative medicine, vitamins, the like, and you ask them what they are treating (to try and help them with their purchase) and they're like 'Oh, I don't know, my friend takes it and she says she feels great'. So sick of the hate against medicine that has at least some credibility and the defense of so many products that are ripping people off.
And tonight, on ABC Radio, I hear that "Chinese Medicine Practitioner" will be considered a skill for the purpose of employing "skilled" foreign labour.
We are slowly, but surely, approaching the endarkenment.