Colleen and Daniel Hauser have returned home after fleeing Minnesota to escape the court’s decision to force Daniel into chemotherapy to treat his Hodgkins Lymphoma.

The Daniel Hauser who is illiterate and homeschooled.

The Daniel Hauser who is in some sort of religious cult.

The Journal has a rather brief description of what this case is about.

The case pits parents’ rights and religious beliefs versus the state’s right to protect children.

Anita of Ovolina struggles with this basic conflict in her thoughts about the case.

In this case the parents’ rights will be violated. The state’s interest in the well being of Daniel Hauser, in preserving his life, trumps the parents’ freedom of choice.

When the state is forced to act as a parent, nobody wins and our liberties suffer. But sometimes, it’s the only choice.

I only hope that even in a case like this, we remember to tread lightly and with regret whenever we take someone’s freedom away.

And of course there are always those who would encourage Daniel to run and never come back.

But is it about parental rights vs. state’s rights?  (Or the state’s interest. . .I’m not sure the state exactly has rights.)  Or is it about the child and who can best protect his rights?

I do not see these kinds of discussions when children are endangered in other ways.  A parent has the right and the responsibility to feed their children, but not the right to not feed them at all.  A parent has the right to monitor a child’s relationships for their own good, but not to lock them in a closet and hide them from the world.  A parent has the right to discipline a child, but not to beat them.  A parent has the right to oversee the health care of their children, but not to deny all treatment.

An adult has the right to refuse medical treatment, but does a child of thirteen who has been unable to demonstrate an understanding of what that refusal would mean?

Others see a different issue than one of basic rights: one of religion.

I have to say something that is heartfelt, and is also meant to offend. I do not absolve you mealy-mouthed moderates, I do not regard your beliefs as harmless. If Colleen Hauser or Leilani Neumann were in your church, you’d tell them to get medical care, but you’d also validate their belief in prayers. You would provide the soothing background muzak that says prayer is good, prayer is virtuous, prayer will connect you to the great lord who can do anything, prayer will give you solace in your time of worry. You would not raise your voice to say that prayer is useless, prayer is self-defeating, that while prayer might make you feel better while your child is suffering, that is no virtue. You pray yourselves. You think it is a noble and generous act for your representatives to prowl the corridors of hospitals, preying on the desperation of the sick. You abase yourselves before false hopes, and sacrifice human dignity on an altar built from the bones of the dead. You would spread the poison, piously excusing yourselves because you only want to administer sub-lethal doses.

The specific views in this case weren’t exactly inspired by Christianity, but I guess they considered themselves Catholic as well.  And I doubt Shamar sees much difference between one “sky faerie” and another.

And I don’t see much difference between shoving all believers into this narrow box and throwing all atheists in with other notable atheists such as Lenin and Pol Pot.

Besides, how much did religion really have to do with it?  The family submitted to chemotherapy and rejected it only after experiencing its side effects.  Perhaps religion was something to hide behind.  Perhaps it was something they were driven to in their search for an alternative.

But I suppose the question remains:  Is Daniel, a thirteen year old with disabilities related to a difficult delivery, capable of making this decision himself?

Daniel Hauser, Hauser