This story caught my eye today and made me reflect on what rights we have as citizens to determine our and our family’s destinies and by how much are these rights curtailed by the state we live in.

A youngster was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in January this year. The recommended treatment was six rounds of chemotherapy. He had one round of chem and his parents decided to replace this aggressive treatment with the more gentle alternative medicines.

A court in Minnesota has now ruled that the parents have been negligent in their parental duties and that the law will enforce this chemotherapy. The boy will be required to take part in whatever treatment the medical practitioners decide on and if needs be will be in foster care.

There are two issues here. One is the right of the parents to decide what is in the best interests of their child and the second is do we necessarily believe that the medical profession actually know what they are doing?

Our immediate reaction, it certainly was mine, is to think that the parents should know better and allow the doctors to do their job. What right have they to play around with their child’s life.

On the other hand how do we know what is good for the child in any case. There have been many instances in past centuries where the society was convinced of something, inflicted that conviction on it’s citizens and was found to be totally useless or even harmful in years to come.

Some of the medical treatments used by doctors in past years have been questionable to say the least. How do we know whether the cancer treatments are in fact the right option? After all the medical profession has so far no real cure for cancer, but have some treatments which they use on a hit and miss basis.

It involves radiating the growth or cutting it out as the two most commonly used procedures. The alternatives of treating the mind and emotional well-being of the individual hardly ever warrant a look at. Yet the most powerful healing tool every person has is their own will and state of mind.

So what right has the state got to inflict a medical treatment on a citizien of its country? And what happens if that treatment was the wrong choice? Is the state culpable then of murder? Or if the parents don’t support the treatment and their son dies are they murderers? Huge question isn’t it.