Horrible court decision leaves aboriginal girl to die - The Starphoenix

 

Six Nations supporter Jamie Clause (LEFT) looks on Six Nations Chief Ava Hill (RIGHT) and Chief Bryan LaForme (CENTRE) of the Mississauga New Credit out front of Brantford's Ontario Court of Justice after a judge dismissed the CAS request to force a 11 year old aboriginal girl to receive chemotherapy, Friday November 13, 2014.

Photograph by: Peter J. Thompson , National Post

By Les MacPherson, The Starphoenix:   This is a horrible decision out of Ontario, where a judge has ruled that aboriginal rights trump a child's right to life.
   The case has been well publicized. An 11-year-old aboriginal girl, stricken with leukemia, was receiving chemotherapy at Mc-Master Children's Hospital in Hamilton. Without this treatment, according to expert medical evidence, the child almost certainly will die. With the chemotherapy, she has a 90 to 95 per cent chance of surviving to old age.
   The girl's mother nevertheless came to reject chemotherapy as poison, which it is, but only in the same sense that heart surgery is a stabbing. She removed her daughter from hospital and discontinued her treatment, instead relying on alternative and traditional aboriginal medicines. The girl now is at a Florida licensed massage clinic where cancer patients are treated with organic vegetables and positive thinking.
   When the mother discharged her daughter from hospital in Hamilton, against medical advice, the hospital sought a court order to remove the girl from the mother's custody for the purpose of saving her life by continuing her chemotherapy. The judge said no. To grant such an order would violate the mother's aboriginal rights, as guaranteed in the Charter, he ruled.
   That's fine, but what about the girl's rights? Her right to life, liberty and security of the person is likewise guaranteed by the Charter. To deny her this most fundamental of rights in effect is to deny all of her rights because she almost certainly will die as a result. If she were treated against the mother's wishes, however, she keeps all of her rights and her mother keeps almost all of her rights. For the scales of justice to tilt the other way is a travesty. To put aboriginal rights or any other rights ahead of a child's right to life-saving medical treatment approaches the obscene....Read more:http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/MacPherson+Horrible+court+decision+leaves+aboriginal+girl/10390438/story.html