Attempted

Last week a 38 year old woman was convicted of attempted murder for withholding medications from her 9 year old son. The full details of the story I am about to discuss are found here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/04/jury_in_kristen.html?p1=News_links . I am fascinated by this story for several reasons. First, while this may seem an obvious question, in truth it is not: Is it up to a parent to decide on medications for their children? There have been several famous cases in the past 30 years of Jehovah's witnesses withholding blood products from their children. And more often than not, courts have had difficulty deciding for the parents if a bad outcome resulted. The thought is generally that a child can not make a sound, informed decision for him or herself. And usually I agree with this. But Kristen LaBrie had an interesting twist to her story: Her son had cancer and was suffering. There have been many times, in my young career, when a patient with a terminal illness, sickened by medications and treatments, has decided that enough was enough. I have helped many people make the difficult decision to stop treatments when I felt they were doing more harm than good. And most patients have felt happy with their decisions and died with dignity, often in the comforts of their own homes with family nearby. Jeremy Fraser, LaBrie's son was only 9 years old when he died. The courts decided, in the end, that he could not have made a decision for himself to terminate treatment, and that his mother was remiss in making a decision to withhold treatment for him. And perhaps both are so. Or, perhaps, as the prosecutors argued, her ulterior motives of fatigue or even selfishness led her to consciously decide to end his life prematurely. But there is another option: maybe this woman and her son communicated and decided together to stop his suffering from the affects of chemotherapy including constant nausea, vomiting, pain, infections, etc. Of note, according to the article, "LaBrie was also convicted of assault and battery on a disabled person with injury, assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, and reckless endangerment of a child". This is a case with no answers. Only this woman and her now dead son really know the circumstances. But as a dad, I know one thing: we greatly underestimate the decision-making ability of children and their ability to know what they need. The defense lawyers in this case spent a lot of time painting LaBrie as an emotionally weak woman, fatigued by responsibility. Instead they might have focused on her relationship with her son, and maybe even noted that he told her clearly several times that he himself did not want the medications. You can argue with her judgement, but it's hard to argue with a sad boy, asking repeatedly to be left alone. As a juror, I would have found it difficult to charge a woman with assault and battery for withholding medications no mater what the argument. Just because he was a boy, the same rules of humanity apply. Chemotherapy is hell, anyone who has endured it knows that. Doctors know that. Kristen LaBrie knows that. And I cannot think of a more difficult circumstance than having to make your child suffer- even to save their life. In the day to day of administering those medications, it may have been easy to lost track of the long-term goal. Watching him whither, vomit, keel over, weaken- that may have played a role. And no matter what, I am appalled that the outcome of the decision in this case is prison. What Kristen LaBrie needs more than anything is psychiatric help. Regardless of the motive for her decision, she'll have to live with it for the rest of her life. That might be punishment enough.