You Can Murder Your Child, But You Can't Make Medical Decisions For Her

Consistency. Consistency is key. So many of our problems could be solved, so much heartache avoided, so many tensions cooled, if only we all tried to be consistent in our beliefs. If only the Powers That Be governed with a consistent philosophy. If only every individual, no matter who they are, reached their conclusions based on a very simple calculation:

"I believe 'A,' therefore I believe 'B,' therefore I believe 'C,' therefore 'D,' therefore 'E,' therefore... etc."

The problem is that, more often than not these days, that equation looks more like:

"I believe 'A,' and then 'X,' but not 'B,' maybe 'C,' definitely not 'D,' but sometimes 'Y,' as long as 'W'... etc."

There isn't any coherence from one position to the next. The principles informing one are suddenly abandoned in order to support a conflicting stance. The rhetorical groundwork for this idea but be dismantled and demolished so that I can also advance that idea. This is the effect that progressivism has had on our society.

Progressivism is confusion. Progressives are inherently confused. They know they want what's easy and what feels good, and they know they hate anything that has the stench of Christianity or traditional morality, but beyond that it's all a crapshoot. Their doctrines are not comprehensible because they make no effort to be logical. And, because our government, our media, and our academic institutions are largely run by progressives, the bewilderment of their ideology seeps into the American conscience, driving everyone insane.

Nothing really makes sense anymore.

Here's Exhibit #934,395,329,032:

Back in September, a 17-year-old in Connecticut was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and told to begin chemotherapy immediately. The girl, Cassandra, underwent two rounds of chemo but decided that she didn't want to continue with a third. She was so emphatic about it that she ran away from home to escape the treatments. Eventually, Cassandra returned home, presumably she and her parents had a long talk about the situation, and the family ultimately decided to respect Cassandra's wishes to forgo any further chemotherapy.

Cassandra, the 17-year-old from Connecticut who is being forced against her will to have chemotherapy. Photo Credit: New York Daily News.

That's when the Department of Children and Families decided to step in.

They asked the court for full custody of Cassandra, and just like that, the girl's parents were stripped of their rights and Cassandra became property of the state. The teenager was removed from her mother and forcibly admitted into a hospital, where she is, according to court documents, guarded 24 hours a day. She isn't allowed to leave, to use her cell phone, or to reject any medical procedure the doctors decide to conduct. Just before Christmas, against her will, surgeons operated on her, installing a port in her chest that allows the chemo chemicals to enter her body. I would say that she is being held "like a prisoner," but even prisoners are allowed to use the phone on occasion.

Again, in case you weren't paying attention, she is being locked away in a hospital and cut open without the consent of her or her parents.

[sharequote align="center"]In case you weren't paying attention, she is locked away in a hospital and cut open without consent.[/sharequote]

Her mom filed an appeal and the Connecticut Supreme Court took up the case. She lost. The forced medical procedures will continue on schedule.

Now, step back and look at this entire picture in focus. Consider this quote from the Connecticut DCF, explaining their actions:

"When experts — such as the several physicians involved in this case — tell us with certainty that a child will die as a result of leaving a decision up to a parent, then the Department has a responsibility to take action. Even if the decision might result in criticism, we have an obligation to protect the life of the child..."

[mattwalsh-social-instory]

It seems dubious that any "expert" could declare with absolute certainty that the girl will die if she doesn't do exactly as her doctors say. But go ahead and assume that these prophets do possess those powers. Go back and read that quote again. Anything seem odd to you?

If a child will die as a result of a parent's decision, the government must take action. They have an obligation to protect the lives of children.

They have an obligation to protect the lives of children. What a statement. I wish they meant it. But something tells me you aren't going to see social services raiding abortion clinics anytime soon. Children dying as a result of a parent's decision? That happens about a million times a year in this country.

Just pause and think about this: a parent is allowed to directly murder their own infant, yet they do not have the authority to decide on a treatment plan for their teenage children. How can the out-and-out execution of babies be justified under the auspices of "bodily autonomy" and "personal choice," but declining chemotherapy should be prohibited under the auspices of protecting children from their parents, even if it infringes on personal choice and absolutely obliterates the girl's so called bodily autonomy?

In this Jan. 25, 2013 file photo, pro-abortion rights activists, rally face-to-face against anti-abortion demonstrators as both march in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington in a demonstration that coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) 

If "A" is the belief that abortion is a sacred human right, how do you make the jump to the belief that the government can kidnap kids and force them into cancer treatments in order to preserve their lives?

What else can you call this but lunacy? We are a thoroughly confused society being run by hypocrites who don't even have the damned decency to be consistent in the bogus rationales they offer for their behavior. One second I can kill my kid outright, the next second I can't make medical decisions because it might kill her.

What? Seriously, WHAT?

The contradictions are compounded by the fact that Cassandra is 17. She is still under her parent's authority (allegedly, conditionally, partially) but she's less than a year away from legal emancipation. She is more than capable of making her own decisions. So capable, in fact, that if she were a few months older and lived in a different state, she'd be allowed to decline chemo in favor of doctor assisted suicide.

How, in the name of all that is unholy, can the same country where euthanasia is legal also be the country where teenagers are forced to get chemo? Throw in the fact that Cassandra, at 17, could legally get an abortion in Connecticut without parental consent, and you have an utterly mystifying assortment of self-defeating laws and philosophies.

Don't try to make heads or tails of this. There isn't a head or a tail, especially not a head. It's just a big arbitrary ball of befuddlement.

Let me try to explain how this should work. There is, believe it or not, a potentially coherent way to handle all of these scenarios. Abortion and "doctor assisted suicide" are both murder. They are considered, intentional, and direct acts of taking a life. That the life in one case is unborn and in another suicidal doesn't make a difference. We're talking about doctors  -- "doctors" -- committing something that can only be described as homicide. It's murder for sale. There's a price tag on it and everything. This should not be legal. This should be banned, shunned, and shamed anywhere we find it. It should not be legal to directly kill another person, and it certainly should not be legal for doctors to facilitate these killings.

Occupy Atlanta's Sara Amis, center, of Sandy Springs, cheers with other protestors as she holds a sign, "Stop the War on Women!," during the "Walk in My Shoes, Hear Our Voice" protest Monday, March 12, 2012 at the state Capitol in Atlanta. Photo Credit: Jason Getz/AP 

On the other hand, when Cassandra, near-adult, and her mother, an actual adult, decide not to elect chemo, they are not committing an act of murder or suicide. You might argue that the decision will eventually lead to a point where a disease called cancer will kill the girl, but there is no question that, when and if this tragic day comes, it will be cancer that takes her life -- not the doctor's knife or a poison pill from the pharmacist.

So you can, without sacrificing a shred of consistency, oppose abortion and euthanasia and forced cancer treatments. You could also oppose abortion and euthanasia, and support forced cancer treatments. You see, if you start with the morally and intellectually sound position that murdering infants is wrong and should be illegal, you can branch off from there and take any number of stances on other controversial issues, so long as your underlying belief in the sanctity of life is preserved. But you can't possibly support the first two and oppose the latter. It makes no sense. On what basis can you argue against the one without ripping up the foundation you laid for the other two?

This is what I've been trying to explain to pro-choicers for years now. The pro-choice position is death. Not just death to babies, but death to your own intelligence. You are forced to blatantly contradict yourself, or else you're forced to become a slave to some very specific and very troubling principles, namely the following:

1) Life has no intrinsic value.

2) We have an absolute and unequivocal right to do whatever we want with our own bodies.

If either aren't true, then the entire pro-abortion house of cards comes tumbling down. But if both are true, or at least if you have posited that both are true, then you can't suddenly abandon these principles when the conversation turns to some other issue. No, it doesn't work that way. You carry these two assumptions with you everywhere and into every argument. If you want to preserve your "abortion rights" platform, you must look at everything through the lens of a world where life is not valuable and we can all do whatever we want with our bodies simply because they are our bodies. Just as I, as a pro-lifer, must look at everything through the lens of a world where life is inherently sacred and we can never murder the innocent, no matter how inconvenient those innocent lives might be.

The advantage I have is that my lens makes everything clearer. It illuminates every topic and helps me reach my ultimate conclusions. Your lens, on the other hand, is more like a blinder. It forces you down a dark and narrow path, or else it forces you to shatter the lens, thereby abandoning your abortion stance completely.

Now, in this particular case, there are arguments to be made on both sides. A pro-life person, standing on firm ground, might come down on one end or the other. But our government has settled on compelling cancer treatments, using the rationale that Cassandra's mother doesn't have the right to do anything that might, in their judgment, hurt her kid, and her kid doesn't have the right to do anything that might, in their judgment, hurt herself. A government that allows abortion simply cannot use that rationale, ever, for anything.

But this is America, circa 2015. Few people care about consistency anymore.

We go from "A" to "X" to "C" back to "A" and over to "G," skipping everything in between, and hardly anyone notices. I guess it's just too difficult to be coherent anymore.

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