Connecticut Forces Teen to Undergo Chemotherapy

By Zac Nickerson

A Teen in Connecticut is being forced to undergo chemotherapy treatments against her wishes. Cassandra, a 17-year-old girl in Hartford, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in September and has been fighting it, as well as the local Department of Children and Families (DCF) ever since.

Cassandra stated in an Op-Ed ran by the Hartford Courant  that when she and her mother received the diagnoses from the doctors they both agreed to seek a second opinion. Following that decision her mother was reported to the DCF for medical neglect for not starting the chemotherapy treatments right away and Cassandra was removed from her mother’s custody in October. Then in December Cassandra was hospitalized and forced to undergo chemotherapy after a court decision granted temporary custody to the DCF.

This month the Connecticut State Supreme Court upheld the earlier decisions to grant the DCF with temporary custody of Cassandra until she completes her chemotherapy or until she turns 18 in nine months.

Interestingly enough, Connecticut is one of seven states that do not require parental consent or notification for a minor to have an abortion, yet they are not willing to grant Cassandra the right to make a decision about her body when it is her own life in question.

Also, last April, a sixteen-year-old Connecticut teen was charged as an adult for the murder of his classmate. In this instance Connecticut clearly didn’t have a problem with viewing minors as capable of making informed, adult decisions when it comes to the life and death of others, yet they are simply unwilling to grant Cassandra her right to choose the type of care she prefers to pursue for herself.

This double standard of saying a minor is able to make adult decisions when it comes to the life and death of others, and yet is unable to make adult decisions when it comes to their own life, is indicative of the socialist elitist’s mindset that the State knows your needs better than you do, and can do a better job of taking care of you regardless of what you believe.

Although the rights of minors are somewhat limited, in a free society those lacking rights are left to the parents to make the best decisions for their children until they come of age. But if we live in a society where the state gets the final say and can overrule the authority of a parent than we have lost the institution of the family all together and will no longer have the right to parenthood.