Ethical dilemma

[kengr]

The local news is full of a story about a 16-year-old boy who died of an easily treatable condition. He and his parents belong to a church that believes in faith healing instead of medical treatment.

It's getting hammered for two reasons. The first is that back in March, his 15-month-old cousin died of something else treatable. The parents in that one have been charged with manslaughter.

The ethical dilemma of the subject comes from the fact that the 16-year-old reportedly refused medical treatment *himself*.

Since Oregon law allows anyone 14 or older to do so, we've got politicians and the public clamoring to change that law. One politician wants to change it to 18.

My opinion is that this is a very *bad* idea. On several levels.

It's already been pointed out that unless the changes are written *very* carefully, they could eliminate the currently existing right of some teen girls to get abortions without parental permission.

But beyond that, I consider it to be a major step into the "nanny state".

Essentially, everyone is saying "It's ok to make your own medical decisions, unless it's a decision we don't like". Which is a major red flag.

Anytime someone is arguing that X shouldn't have been able to make that decision regarding their own lifebecause it was [in the speaker's opinion] a bad decision is trying to run other people's lives for them.

A 16 year old is old enough to get married. Old enough to operate a deadly weapon (an automobile) and so on. Saying that they can't choose a course that might kill them out of religious conviction is not an ethical thing to do.

And before jumping on me, just stop and consider what sort of medical treatments parents or the state could *force* on unwilling 14-17 year olds of the law is changed.

Forced abortions. Forced lack of abortions. "Corrective" surgeries. Even psych treatments. Do we *really* want to go there?

If so, aren't we holding to the same "high" ethics as the anti-abortion folks who list themselves so that they *look* like abortion clinics and then try to browbeat the women who are fooled into keeping the kid?

This really *is* a slippery slope. One that we need to be moving *away* from, not towards.

Yes, I'm sorry the kid died. But you can't go around telling people how to live their lives. Or that they can't do something that might kill them.

Freedom of choice is meaningless unless it includes the right to make decisions that other people don't like.

Comments

[morgan-gw.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that this is happening in one of the few states that has a "right to die" law (IIRC). If he'd had a terminal condition and "opted out," as it were, would that have been legal? (I ask because I don't know the details of OR's laws on this.) If so, then IMO refusing a treatment is the same thing, morally/ethically whatever.

[kengr]

Well, part of the fuss here is that the "medical treatment" would have been placing a catheter. He dies of uremic poisoning due to urinary blockage...

People that medicine can't cure, folks (mostly) have no problem with. Folks that can be "cured" by something that simple? Not so much.

And the fact that he likely didn't want to die is probably a factor as well.

[netdancer.livejournal.com]

People should be allowed to Darwin themselves assuming they're old enough to understand the consequences of their actions. By 16 even the most sheltered human has a idea what Dead is, and assuming his doctors made it plain that they expected Serious Problems to arise from his refusing treatment, then, well. So long as it was actually his decision and not something forced on him by his parents or religious leader, I'm all for his right to tell them to fuck off and then subsequently perish.