Help Minnesota Family Choose A Minnesota boy, Daniel Hauser, age 13, and his parents, are fighting for his right to avoid chemotherapy in his quest to regain his health. Daniel is suffering from Hodgkins Lymphoma, and he has already received one round of chemotherapy, and is now using alternative methods of healing. However, Brown County Family Services are seeking to force the child to receive multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and threatening to remove the child from the parents’ custody if necessary to ensure medical treatment is done. Please read more below about the case, and consider taking action to help this family. WHAT YOU CAN DO: NHFC encourages you to: Attend the hearing scheduled for this Friday morning. Your attendance and that of many others will help to support this family and raise the important issue of the freedom to make our own choices in our health care and that of our children. (see below) Help to publicize this issue by forwarding this message to others on your list. It must be recognized by our government that there is more than one way to good health care. Health care treatment can come in different avenues and one can build health in many ways. The government must not dictate only one approach to treatment based on drugs and surgery. Many parents have, in good faith, done their own research and found alternatives that are good common-sense approaches to regaining the body’s natural balance that support the whole health of the person. If those approaches are not dangerous, and if the parents are well-informed of the risks, (both the dangers of chemotherapy and the risks that the disease presents), then the parents are making informed decisions on behalf of their children. We should respect the parents’ wishes and their responsibility for their children, and not have the government be dictating only one way to approach illness, based on drugs and surgery. Please attend the hearing Friday morning, May 8, 8:30 am. Brown County Courthouse, Original Source Link Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg decided the trial of the child protection case involving Daniel Hauser, 13, of Sleepy Eye, will begin next Friday morning. The case comes out of a child protection petition filed in early April by Brown County Family Services, alleging Hauser's parents were medically neglecting him because he was not going to chemotherapy but receiving alternative treatments for his nodular sclerosing Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of cancer common among adolescents and young adults, despite the advice of four doctors, because of religious beliefs and because of concerns his parents had about chemotherapy, which Daniel's aunt died from. At the pre-trial hearing Friday morning, Hauser's parents' attorney, Calvin Johnson of Mankato, asked the court for a summary judgement on the grounds that the state's action violates spiritual law and that "by his religious beliefs and his freedom of conscience" Danny will refuse chemotherapy. Daniel Hauser also submitted an affidavit Friday of his own through his attorney, Phil Elbert of New Ulm, which stated he is a Nemenhah medicine man, a church elder, that he will do no harm to himself or others, is opposed to chemotherapy "because it is self-destructive and poisonous", that his aunt died as a result of chemotherapy, that he is receiving adequate medical care consistent with his religious beliefs and has made the decision to disobey any order to have him surrender to any medical treatment "involving self-destruction and death, including chemotherapy." Rodenberg informed the court at the beginning that the pre-trial would be handled in open court due to public interest in the matter, instead of in his chambers like most pre-trial hearings in custody matters. Rodenberg denied the motion to dismiss, ruling that there are issues for resolution in the case, including whether or not Brown County can demonstrate a compelling state interest in intervening in the decisions regarding medical care that Daniel's parents arrived at previously. Rodenberg told Elbert that Tony and Colleen Hauser have said they will follow the court's orders. Elbert replied, citing a state statute that allows a competent person the right to refuse treatment. Brown County Attorney James Olson rebutted that he would have no problem with Elbert's argument, except that Daniel Hauser is 13, rather than 18, and that the court would not be ordering Daniel to go to chemotherapy, but would be ordering his parents to do that. Although Johnson disagreed, Rodenberg repeated his decision, telling the attorney the issues he raised in his motion are issues for a trial. Two new attorneys were added to the case on Friday, one representing the guardian ad litem for Brown County and the other a Washington D.C. attorney for the Hausers who works in medical rights matters. |