A Hamilton Tragedy

A very ill eleven year old boy with leukemia is taken into care because his father has decided further treatment is not appropriate.

There is a right to treatment mandated by provincial legislation and when a parent blocks that right, the Children's Aid Society intervenes.

Here the boy, who has fetal alcohol syndrome (detectable in his broad face and slightly slurred speech), is unable to understand the consequences of denying treatment.

So what is the issue? If the treatment was clearly effective and the refusal to continue motivated by some moral or religious scruple there would be little doubt as to the rightness of the CAS decision.

But here the boy may well be dying and the treatment ineffective but painful.

Should the Courts intervene here? Candidly I am torn but am inclined to err on the side of life.
James Morton
1100 - 5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4