Judge says forcing aboriginal girl to stay in chemo is to ‘impose our world view on First Nation culture’

I'm not sure what you mean by "multiplicity... of fans".  Are you accusing me of making sock puppets?

I think that you're conflating colonialism with concerns over a child receiving appropriate medical care.  I'm pretty sure Connie Walker, for instance, is not promoting colonialism.

rhubarb wrote:

I accuse you of supporting a view that offers no respect for the First Nations people.

That has nothing to do with "multiplicity... of fans." 

Quote:

I have posted to show my respect for the right of First Nations peoples to find their own way.  For me, this this thread is not about who is right or who is wrong, it is about their right to choose what treatments they will pursue.

Balls you have.  You've posted your support of quackery and alt med - a support so strong that it considers the death of a child perfectly okay as long as her mother is making choices that support your prejudices against science and medicine.

As Connie Walker points out, this was never about respecting indiginous practices - even if people have used the situation to make hay over the issue.

IOW:  I got nuthin'.

If the cause of Makayla's death does matter, Smith, it's only because the alt-med believers are going to claim that refusing chemotherapy is justified by Makayla's death. 

My concern from the beginning of the thread has been that JJ isn't being protected to the extent any other child of any other race in Canada is.  Her mother loves her deeply, but is making bad decisions based on fear and ignorance.  Regardless her FN status, isn't that where the child welfare system is supposed to kick into gear?  Should the fact that this particular child is FN have any bearing on the matter?

FWIW, I think the answer to the first question is "yes", and to the second that it doesn't.  I think JJ is being treated as expendable in making a point about FN autonomy, and I find that deeply disturbing.

What I meant was that those who believe that the fix is in aren't likely to believe an autopsy result.

And while I agree with your concerns, I disagree with spinning this as FN children being less valuable because the federal government isn't forcing a decision on them.  Sorry, but not only are the causes of this far more complex than one family allegedly making a bad decision based on ignorance, that kind of enforced solution never has solved the problem, only made it worse.

But we have been around this point a few times already in this thread.

 

Well it is a loaded question, and it is not the only reason why the two decisions were made - in particular the one by CFS. To spin it as that and that alone is not accurate.

I have pointed to a reference in another article a couple of times. Here it is again in The Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/01/20/ontario-law-allows-children-t...

It wasn't the alleged ignorance of her family, nor her FN status.

Be that as it may, it is the law, and the basis of the first decision. Despite the words of the judge in the trial against CFS, we have no way of knowing that there might not have been the same outcome with a child who was not FN.

But the fact that she is FN gives a bitter irony to some of the public reaction, and the claims that her life would have been more "valued" by the use of brute force.

As if we haven't been using that brute force enough.

 

 

 

Timebandit wrote:

I guess the point is that the same "brute force"* would be applied to any other child, too.  It's not a result of singling out an aboriginal child.

Or not. We don't know. But my point was that we don't know if the legal decisioncame down to singling out FN people, despite the judge's comments. A siimilar decision might have been reached based on the consent law.

But as I said, the irony is in contrasting that with our long history of forcing solutions on Native people, the fact that history is largely responsible for this mistrust, and the fact that it has never been a lasting solution.

Timebandit wrote:

If the cause of Makayla's death does matter, Smith, it's only because the alt-med believers are going to claim that refusing chemotherapy is justified by Makayla's death. 

My concern from the beginning of the thread has been that JJ isn't being protected to the extent any other child of any other race in Canada is.  Her mother loves her deeply, but is making bad decisions based on fear and ignorance.  Regardless her FN status, isn't that where the child welfare system is supposed to kick into gear?  Should the fact that this particular child is FN have any bearing on the matter?

FWIW, I think the answer to the first question is "yes", and to the second that it doesn't.  I think JJ is being treated as expendable in making a point about FN autonomy, and I find that deeply disturbing.

100% yes.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

I guess the point is that the same "brute force"* would be applied to any other child, too.  It's not a result of singling out an aboriginal child.

Or not. We don't know. But my point was that we don't know if the legal decisioncame down to singling out FN people, despite the judge's comments. A siimilar decision might have been reached based on the consent law.

But as I said, the irony is in contrasting that with our long history of forcing solutions on Native people, the fact that history is largely responsible for this mistrust, and the fact that it has never been a lasting solution.

I was thinking about this, and something that was linked to something else brought up this link - Ontario doesn't seem to have trouble intervening with white parents espousing alt med:

[quoote]

An Ottawa father says he lost his parental decision-making rights Friday for refusing to allow doctors at CHEO to proceed with chemotherapy treatment for his 18-month-old son's leukemia.

The man can't be named because the case is being handled by Children's Aid.

He claims the hospital hasn't provided him with enough written evidence of his son's condition and isn't receptive to his desire for alternative treatment options -- namely cannabis oil. [/quote]

http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/09/12/cannabis-not-chemo-for-son-with-leuk...

So if there isn't a religious or First Nations slant to it, Children's Aid absolutely will step in.  I can't help feeling that this reinforces the idea that the reason Children's Aid is not intervening in J.J.'s case because she is First Nations.

swallow wrote:

Meg, do you feel the discussion here is in line with the aboriginal forum's mandate? 

A question that has been asked here already and has still not been addressed. If the mods are not going to moderate this forum according to its mandate, should Babble really have an Aboriginal Issues forum?

Maybe CAS believes an 11 year old has greater capacity for making decisions about her own health than a toddler would.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

Maybe CAS believes an 11 year old has greater capacity for making decisions about her own health than a toddler would.

So can someone please explain why an 11 year old is fully capable of making life or death decisions about his or her health while at the same time being inappropriate for an 11 year old who is charged with a crime being tried as an adult or taking on a full-time job in the adult workforce?

Aristotleded24 wrote:

So can someone please explain why an 11 year old is fully capable of making life or death decisions about his or her health while at the same time being inappropriate for an 11 year old who is charged with a crime being tried as an adult or taking on a full-time job in the adult workforce?

Maybe because the law is supposed to be a shield, not a sword.

Plus it is one thing to make a decision to do something, another to refuse having something done to you.

 

Yeah, but the counter argument is a person being allowed to decide what she does and does not want to have done to her body. It is not simple at all.

 

OK, but to be fair, if what she does want to to have done to her body is just a nose piercing then why the five year wait?

If a nose ring turns out to be a bad idea, it'll grow back in in a couple of years.  That's the worst case scenario.

Timebandit wrote:

If you read the judgment, oda, the judge - who is, incidentally, a member of Six Nations as well - found that J.J. lacked the capacity to make that decision herself

I'm aware of that. What I'm not aware of is whether that view is shared by the CAS (although it might be). And if not, I can understand why they might not have a 'one size fits all' approach in these matters. It's not hard for me to imagine that an 11 year old might understand the gravity of her medical situation better than someone one seventh her age.

 

Aristotleded24 wrote:

So can someone please explain why an 11 year old is fully capable of making life or death decisions about his or her health while at the same time being inappropriate for an 11 year old who is charged with a crime being tried as an adult or taking on a full-time job in the adult workforce?

For the same reason why I think an 11 year old should be allowed to decide to begin hormone therapy or have an abortion.

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

If you read the judgment, oda, the judge - who is, incidentally, a member of Six Nations as well - found that J.J. lacked the capacity to make that decision herself

I'm aware of that. What I'm not aware of is whether that view is shared by the CAS (although it might be). And if not, I can understand why they might not have a 'one size fits all' approach in these matters. It's not hard for me to imagine that an 11 year old might understand the gravity of her medical situation better than someone one seventh her age..

It isn't that she is more capable than a toddler to understand, it's whether she is fully competent to make such a decision. The judge felt she wasn't, so it's not really a case of what degree. In both instances, the decision was coming from the parent. White and aboriginal are given two standards of protection. ETA: Neither abortion nor hormone treatment will result in the 11 year old's death.

[url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/jesse/2015/01/makayla-cancer-and-colonia..., cancer, and colonialism[/url]

Far too much for me to excerpt. I'm interested to hear thoughts on this article.

I would excerpt this part:

As Laurie Meijer Drees writes in Healing Stories: Stories from Canada's Indian Hospitals, "As early as 1914, sections of the Indian Act allowed the government to apprehend patients by force if they did not seek medical treatment." This forced treatment denied traditional medicine and included segregated facilities ("Indian hospitals") that medically experimented on Indigenous people. The same happened in residential schools that stole Indigenous children from their communities -- a practice that continues today through other means.

The denial of traditional knowledge included imposing a highly restricted view of healthcare ("Western medicine") that reduces health to an isolated individual and pharmaceutical intervention -- ignoring social, economic, environmental and cultural factors that determine health and the accessibility and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals.....  But a biological reductionist view came to dominate capitalist healthcare -- undermining the potential of its own treatments, by ignoring broader factors that shape people's susceptibility to illness and their potential to access and benefit from medication.

But the article doesn't go far enough for me. The right to refuse a treatment, in "J.J."'s case a decision made by the caregivers/next of kin, should be a fundamental right for anyone. The right to die, the right to accept consequences, should also be a fundamental right for all people because it essentially is the right to choice in all matters involving one's own body. The state does not own Makayla's or "J.J.'s" or our bodies. If we start intervening because they're children and we don't trust that the parents are making caring decisions for their children (and that might be a valid area for court determination) then where are we going to draw the line in the future.

While chemotherapy has proven itself in short-term treatment of leukemia (there is an acknowledged absence of data regarding long-term outcomes) this doesn't mean we can impose this standard of care just because it's a "standard of care." To do so would indeed impose our world view on that of another. Different people, faith based or not, have different philosophies and approaches to health, illness, life and death. The Hippocratic imperative of 'life above all else' is not necessarily correct or appropriate. Do you think Makayla or her parents didn't understand the risks? I think they did.

jas wrote:

While chemotherapy has proven itself in short-term treatment of leukemia (there is an acknowledged absence of data regarding long-term outcomes)

In the long term, leukemia patients who use chemotherapy end up dead. In the long term, non-leukemia patients end up dead.

What's your point?

jas wrote:

The right to refuse a treatment, in "J.J."'s case a decision made by the caregivers/next of kin, should be a fundamental right for anyone. The right to die, the right to accept consequences, should also be a fundamental right for all people because it essentially is the right to choice in all matters involving one's own body. The state does not own Makayla's or "J.J.'s" or our bodies. If we start intervening because they're children and we don't trust that the parents are making caring decisions for their children (and that might be a valid area for court determination) then where are we going to draw the line in the future.

We already do that. In life threatening situations Jehovah Witness parents are overridden by the courts to allow doctors to give their children blood transfusions. We draw the line when children are going to die if their parents deny them medical treatment.

The state doesn't override parents based on ownership of children. Parents don't own children either. Children are human beings with rights of their own.

MegB wrote:

Rhubarb, you have been warned, yet you continue to bait and attack. Welcome to your babble-free weekend.

Funny, I read,"Welcome to your babble-free weekend." as both baiting and attacking.  LOL

I appreciated the Rabble article linked to by Aristotle.   I wish that I saw that respect for the First Nations peoples here in the Aboriginal Issues and Culture Forum.

You aren't a child, jas.