parents know best?

quoted from theskimm.com:
"Did you hear about the Connecticut Supreme Court decision? Yesterday, CT’s Supremes ruled that a 17-year-old girl can be forced to undergo cancer treatment, even though she doesn’t want it. The girl was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in September, but after undergoing chemotherapy, refused to continue with treatments. Her mother accepted her decision. But child services intervened, with her doctors saying that she stood a good chance of surviving if she completed treatment. She was placed in state custody so the state could make medical decisions on her behalf. She’s been living in a children’s medical center, undergoing chemo for the last few weeks. The girl’s lawyer says this is about having the “fundamental right” to choose what happens to her body, and that she will be appealing the decision."

what do you think? i think that while i generally believe we should have say of what we do with our bodies, that she is a minor complicates things. she is 17 tho, so she's pretty close to being an adult.

i think that in this case i do agree with the state. i think that her mom *was* negligent in her care and handling of her daughter's cancer diagnosis and treatment. (article here) and, maybe unfairly, it does matter to me that cassandra has been homeschooled. for some reason i feel that were she in a traditional school she would have made a different decision. she has an 85% chance of survival, after all. this is super high!

going off on a bit of a tangent here. but recently a few people were killed when little little kids got a hold of guns: 2yo shoots mom, 3yo shoots 18month brother, 3yo shoots mom. my my mom asked how this could have happened? i said "bad parenting." and that's really what it was. my dad has always had guns around the house. but they were *never* left unattended in the open. they were locked up, hidden away, put somewhere inaccessible to me. they were also never loaded. my mom had a really good point about the wal-mart tragedy. she said that if something bad were happening, the mom should only worry about protecting her child. she should not be a hero and with her gun confront someone. this made a lot of sense to me. if alone, i might stand up to the car hijacker/bank robber/looter/crazy gunman. but if i have my child with me i am not leaving my kid alone so they can see me get killed. i'm sorry, but someone else can try to save us all because i choose to be selfish and not put my kid thru that level of trauma.

a lot of the time it's difficult to know what's best for your child. but i think in some of the cases mentioned here, what's right was obvious.