Mom the Criminal

This is Geov Parrish. On Thursday, June 22, 34-year-old Tina Carlsen picked up her nine-month old baby, Riley Rogers, and the pair left Harborview Medical
Center in Seattle. Itâ??s a perfectly normal scenario, except that Riley was hours away from a scheduled surgery to treat what media reports call a serious kidney ailment. And because Carlsen and Rileyâ??s father believe in alternative medical care and had refused doctorsâ?? recommendations for surgery and dialysis for Riley, the state of Washington had taken custody of Riley Rogers. The parents considered the proposed course of treatment life-threatening. So, when Tina, trying to protect the life of her child against the forcible intervention of doctors and the state, was pulled over 48 hours later, Riley was returned to his tiny hospital bed. And Tina is now facing charges of second degree kidnapping.

This story pushed my buttons for several reasons. Iâ??ve been wrestling with a serious, often life-threatening, illness for 15 years, the result of what media reports might call a serious kidney ailment. Iâ??ve had the same surgery baby Riley had a week after he was rescued from his loving mother. Western medicine, the kind Tina Carlsen abhors, saved my life, but before it did that, it nearly killed me. I was in a coma three times, once for several days. Iâ??ve had nearly a dozen surgeries to fix complications arising from only 15 months of dialysis -- the same often-debilitating yet life-giving procedure doctors wanted for Riley, and that Tina Carlsen was , probably rightly, terrified of.

The experimental organ transplants that saved my life are very much a product of cutting edge Western medicine. Yet Western medicine has also blown my diagnoses, given me ineffective treatments for acute problems, and even at times made me much, much sicker. Itâ??s not an exact science. Nor are the various forms of alternative medicine out there, many of which Iâ??ve tried. Good naturopaths know when theyâ??re over their heads. Iâ??ve seen alternative treatments work wonders in grim cases where Western medicine failed badly. I also watched helplessly as a friend with a worrisome lump that was, at the time, an easily treatable cancer, refuse for months to go to a doctor due to his hostility to Western medicine. Once it was finally diagnosed, he insisted solely on natural treatments, and died a long, slow, agonizing death, wasting away essentially on principle. It was the most pointless, prolonged suicide Iâ??ve ever seen.

For a child, only parents should have the final word on medical decisions. (Western medicine is good, but not always the final word in medical decision-making. But for a child, parents should be.) Why do members of religious faiths like Jehovahâ??s Witness and Christian Science have the right to refuse recommended medical care for their children, but parents like Tina Carlsen are considered criminals for exercising the same right? Prayer helps, sure, but on average naturopathy helps more. In our separated church/state legal system, is it really okay for parents to make a counterintuitive decision if an amorphous voice in the sky tells them to, but not if they arrive at that conclusion due to research and reason? The state can't claim its religious belief is superior to yours, but it can and does claim that it *thinks* better than you do? Is that the deal here?

I have no idea whether Tina Carlsen acted appropriately. I donâ??t know
enough about little Rileyâ?? s medical condition to have a clue. But neither does
a judge and the state: one authority figure, trusting the word of another. That
decision should be solely for Rileyâ??s parents, with the aid of medical professionals,
Western and otherwise, to resolve. And when a mother feels that the life of her
baby is being threatened, my instinct is to give her a whole heck of a lot of
latitude in what she chooses to do about it. Instead, mom is in jail, possibly
facing a year in prison, her life in ruins; the state has taken the kid, apparently indefinitely; and Riley is being subjected to risky medical procedures neither parent wanted.

I sure hope this turns out well.

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