The Right to Make Our Own Medical Choices

I have been following the story of a 17-year-old Connecticut teenager who does not want chemotherapy treatment for her Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her argument is that she wants to choose a quality of life without the drugs rather than a quantity of life. She is concerned about the long-term effects that the treatment will have on her body and is opposed to having the chemicals injected into her. However, because of her age, the Department of Children and Families in her State has intervened in this matter feeling an obligation to enforce medical treatment because the medical professionals have absolutely determined that she will die without it and the Department feels that it is their obligation to defend the life of any minor, regardless of the circumstances.

For this young lady, Cassandra, she is so opposed to the treatments that she ran away from home after the first two that she received in November. She knows what her options are and understands that the doctors have advised that she will die without this treatment. She has made her wishes known to her mother who supports the choice that her daughter is making as her right to do so. And Cassandra has indicated that she will leave the medical facility where she is currently being treated as soon as she turns 18 years of age.

On the other side, the Department of Children and Families and the courts have a moral and legal obligation to protect the lives of children and therefore, have felt the necessity to intervene in this matter. No one wants any child to be harmed or hurt in any way but in a case like this, does this really fall inside of that which should be the department’s and/or the court’s jurisdiction? Has the obligation to protect a child’s life been stretched beyond the boundaries of what was intended by the regulations that govern these two bodies? This is the matter that I believe needs to be addressed.

Cassandra is being forced to undergo a treatment that she does not want because she is a few months short of what is considered to be the legal age to make such a decision. She does not want the treatment and has done everything that she can do to make her point. She understands the ramifications of what will happen without the chemotherapy. She has worked with and enlisted the help of her mother who is the only person who might have the legal right to make such a decision on behalf of her daughter. Yet despite every effort, their choices and desires are not being heard and/or honored.

I am not in a position to make a decision in this matter or any other similar matter as each case is individual. However, I am really troubled by this case because this is the patient’s choice about her own life whose wishes are not being honored because of a matter of a few months until she reaches an arbitrarily determined age that she can make such choices for herself. Consider that our legal system can make a determination to try a person as an adult for a crime even if they have not reached 18 years of age so why not allow the same leeway for this situation? This is not a matter of a parent making a decision for the child. Knowing full well that Cassandra will withdraw treatment as soon as she is legally able to do so in a matter of months, why would one find it necessary to force this treatment on her now? If it is being done on the basis that she is still a child, might this not be considered as abuse by the very systems that are supposed to protect her? And while this may medically keep her alive for a longer period of time than if she didn’t have the treatment, who knows how this matter may ultimately affect her mentally and physically. I believe that there is a difference between the enforcement of rules and regulations that are to be enforced by the courts and the crossing of the line into this medical decision that should be Cassandra’s decision alone. As a patient advocate who wants patients to be able to make their own choices in treatment, this case makes me very sad.