Brilliantly said. Anyone remember Terri Schaivo?

Today's news on it:

Police look for mom, son who fled to avoid chemo

By AMY FORLITI and PATRICK CONDON, Associated Press Writers Amy Forliti And Patrick Condon, Associated Press Writers – 30 mins ago

SLEEPY EYE, Minn. – A courtroom clash between medicine and faith took a criminal turn, with police around the country on the lookout Wednesday for a Minnesota mother who fled with her cancer-stricken 13-year-old son rather than consent to chemotherapy.

A court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed a tumor growing in Daniel Hauser's chest, and doctors said it will probably kill him without conventional medical treatment.

Before she took off, Colleen Hauser told a judge that she wished to treat her son's cancer with natural healing methods advocated by an American Indian religious group known as the Nemenhah Band. But even that group's founder said Hauser made a mistake by running from the law.

Authorities in Minnesota said they were following a number of leads on the whereabouts of mother and son, but gave no details.

"I just wish we could get to Colleen and tell her to come in. This is not going to go away. It's a court order," Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffmann said. He said Hauser's husband was cooperating with investigators.

Daniel has Hodgkins lymphoma, a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemo and radiation. But the teen and his parents rejected chemo after a single treatment, with the boy's mother saying that putting toxic substances in the body violates the family's religious convictions.

Colleen Hauser said she had been treating the boy's cancer instead with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives — a regimen based mostly on information she found on the Internet.

The Hauser family had been ordered to appear before a judge Tuesday for a hearing to consider chemo. But mother and son failed to show, and a warrant was issued for the mother's arrest.

Daniel's father, Anthony Hauser, said in an interview Wednesday at the family's farm near Sleepy Eye, a town of 3,500 people about 80 miles from Minneapolis, that his wife and son left without telling him their plans, and that he hadn't heard from them.

He said he hopes his wife is either getting their son treatment for his illness or will bring him home. "If he's being cared for, and it's going to help him, I think it's going to be a good thing," Anthony Hauser said.

James Olson, the attorney representing social service authorities in Minnesota, originally asked the judge to cite the father for contempt of court, but later backed off and said he believed Hauser didn't know the whereabouts of his wife and son.

An alert issued to police departments around the country said mother and son might be traveling with a California lawyer named Susan Daya. The alert said they might also be with a Massachusetts man named Billy Best, who as a teenager in 1994 ran away from home to escape chemotherapy for cancer similar to Daniel's. Best, who says he was cured by natural remedies, had appeared at a news conference in Minnesota recently to support the Hausers. Daya and Best did not immediately return telephone messages Wednesday.

The Nemenhah Band, based in Weaubleau, Mo., advocates healing methods tied to American Indian practices. The Hausers are not American Indian.

Phillip Cloudpiler Landis founded Nemenhah about a decade ago and calls himself its principal medicine chief. He said it was prompted by his own bout with cancer, which he claims to have cured through diet, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.

Landis served several months in prison in Idaho for fraud tied to the sale of natural remedies. Nemenhah members are asked to pay $250 to join and a monthly $100 fee.

On Tuesday, Landis said Hauser should not have run, adding: "You don't solve anything by disregarding the order of the judge."

There have been at least five instances in the U.S. in recent years in which parents fled with a sick child to avoid medical treatments.

They include the celebrated case of Parker Jensen, who was 12 when his family fled from Utah to Idaho in 2003 to avoid court-ordered chemo after doctors removed a small cancerous tumor under his tongue. Daren and Barbara Jensen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a deal that brought no jail time or fines, and went on to lobby for legislation to strengthen the rights of parents. Parker survived without chemotherapy.

In Minnesota, District Judge John Rodenberg ruled last week that the Hausers were neglecting their son, and ordered them to consult doctors. He cited a state law requiring parents to provide necessary medical care for a child.

Most states have similar laws. A few have exemptions allowing parents to refuse treatment on religious grounds, and Minnesota was one of them. But Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he helped push a bill through the Legislature to remove it two decades ago. He said the impetus was a case involving Christian Scientist parents who refused insulin for a diabetic child in the mid-1980s.

Caplan, one of the nation's foremost medical ethicists, said religious exceptions are bad public policy because effective medical treatment for a child shouldn't be sacrificed for a parent's beliefs.

As I posted early on, I am very familiar with the disease and it's treatment. Not giving treatment is probably a death sentence. This is not unlike watching someone bleed to death while someone dances around them with a magic rattle. You can't pick and choose which laws to obey. The CPS laws are there for a reason and this is one of them.

I agree.

The ruling by this judge is a violation of the 1ST and 14TH Amendments.
Its a violation of Freedom of Religion, Privacy, and Parental rights. (Damn the busy-bodies)
It could also be said that its an intrusion into the quality of life.

Who released this childs medical records to the State anyway?

I hope they get away!
Id even help!

"Minnesota statutes require parents to provide necessary medical care for a child, Rodenberg wrote. The statutes say alternative and complementary health care methods aren't enough." Most states have such laws.

Most states have similar laws. A few have exemptions allowing parents to refuse treatment on religious grounds, and Minnesota was one of them. But Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he helped push a bill through the Legislature to remove it two decades ago. He said the impetus was a case involving Christian Scientist parents who refused insulin for a diabetic child in the mid-1980s.

Caplan, one of the nation's foremost medical ethicists, said religious exceptions are bad public policy because effective medical treatment for a child shouldn't be sacrificed for a parent's beliefs.


More and more rights are slipping away from Americans!
Mostly because of nosey people who tend to think they should dictate others right to choose.

There are many to look at the issue but the state had the right to step in to save the kid's life.

On the religous front, yeah there freedom of religion but there a limit of religion if the belief does harm to people or if it infringes on the rights of others. In this case the right to life of the child.

On parents rights there the argument of parental negliect. As a upstanding parent your responsibility is to do everything to preserve the life of your child. If the parent is negliectiful in those duties then the state steps on behave of the child.

The right to privacy was mainly to protect the right of a woman right to consult a Dr. over abortion with out the state obstructing. I believe the Dr in this case, in keeping in the hipocratic oath, contacted the state with concern over the child health. The Dr, in good conscience, would not be responsible if the child died unless he neglected in reporting the child health to the state.

Which ever way you put it the persevation of the child's life is the ultimate goal in each of the 3 arugments.

Nicely said.

the legal definition of neglect is

An omission to do or perform some work, duty, or act.

As used by U.S. courts, the term neglect denotes the failure of responsibility on the part of defendants or attorneys. Neglect is related to the concept of Negligence, but its rather limited use in the law sets it apart from that much broader doctrine. Generally speaking, neglect means omitting or failing to do something that is required. Neglect is often related to timeliness: examples include the failure of a taxpayer to file a timely income tax return and the failure of an attorney to meet a deadline for filing an appeal. In determining whether to rule against a party, courts consider the reason for the neglect, which can range from unavoidable accidents and hindrances to the less acceptable extreme of carelessness and indifference to duty.

Special terminology applies to some forms of neglect. Culpable neglect exists where a loss arises from an individual's carelessness, improvidence, or folly. Willful neglect applies to marital cases; it refers to the neglect of one spouse, historically the husband, to provide such essentials as food, shelter, and clothing to the other spouse, either because of refusal or indifference. Excusable neglect is used to grant exceptions in cases where neglect was the consequence of accident, unavoidable hindrance, reliance on legal counsel, or reliance on promises made by the adverse party. Excusable neglect can serve as the basis for a motion to vacate a judgment, as in the case of explaining why a deadline for filing an appeal could not be met. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, excusable neglect authorizes a court to permit an act to be done after the official deadline has expired




but if these parents WERE doing something...then when does it become neglect?

This isn't a difficult problem for me anyway.

Is a child property? Does the child have rights that are equal to the parent's? I think a child is not property and should have rights equal to the parent. If a child is neglected or has to face something like this, they should have someone to speak for them that is NOT their parents.

Every one in my neighborhood as a kid knew my parent was beating the hell out of us and worse. No one said or did anything about it. It was believed that you did not step in when such things happened. I am glad to see that has changed.

Again children are not property you can treat as property, they are individuals that should be treated as such.

Maybe I am wrong, but if I see you neglecting your child or beating up on them, I am damn well going to do something. If that means some rights are being taken away, that's just fine with me. If parents had more sense, we wouldn't have the laws in the first place.

the constitution is supposed to be law of the land

constitution is on the side of freedom of religion

if they live the life they profess then the constition is on there side

they are not not treating the boy

they are using natural healing methods

did anyone bather looking at thew site i posted explaining about those methods

or are you jumping on the bad parent band wagon

What? If people don't agree with you, they are jumping on the "bad parent band wagon"?!

I prefer this site:

http://www.cancer.gov/cancerinfo/types/hodgkinslymphoma

it has nothing to do with agreeing with me it has to do with saying they are a bad parent

The parents prefer other methods...

THAT IS THEIR RIGHT!

To remove this is to open the door even further for mandated treatments at the discretion of the government. It is at the discretion of the people, parents in this case, what doctor and what form of treatment to use. If they are ok and believe that another treatment is better, whose right is it to refuse them that?

The state law says that they are being bad parents.

well if you agree state then i guess yer on their bad parent band wagon

the state law is over ruled by the constitution