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JISHOU, HUNAN — The Rifqa Bary saga continues, but I fear there will be a tragic ending to an already tragic story.
Bary, the Christian convert teen who ran away from home last year alleging her Muslim parents would kill her, apparently is rejecting chemotherapy for her uterine cancer, claiming she was cured by a faith healer. She is also rejecting a reunion with her family, whom law enforcement officials say pose no threat to her safety.
The teenager became a poster child for the anti-Muslim and/or born-again religious crowd after she ran away from her Columbus home to Orlando, Florida, claiming her parents would kill her because of her conversion to Christianity three years before she fled. She eventually ended up in foster care back in Ohio.
In May, the 17-year-old Sri Lankan native was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and has since had three operations.
According to news reports, documents filed by her parents in Franklin County Court state that Bary is refusing chemotherapy because she claims she was healed at an event in Youngstown last month. She was allegedly taken there without her parents’ consent, and her parents want the court to force Bary to undergo chemotherapy if she needs it.
A judge will decide on the parents’ motion today.
Meanwhile, Bary, who turns 18 next week, has refused to meet with her family. Her lawyers say the girl fears her parents still.
[Oh, ye of little faith. But I digress.]
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota judge has ruled a 13-year-old boy with a highly treatable form of cancer must seek medical treatment over his parents’ objections.
Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg ruled Friday that Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye has been “medically neglected” and is in need of child protection services. Rodenberg said Daniel will stay in the custody of his parents, but Colleen and Anthony Hauser have until May 19 to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.
Doctors have said Daniel’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.
So much for the Native American church defense.
Hauser’s parents, and Daniel himself, insisted their religion — subscription to a sketchy Mormon/New Age/pseudo-Native-American church — requires them to treat illness only with natural remedies. Daniel had one chemo session, and the family refused further chemo treatment, saying that the boy is healthy now.
The Hausers are white and Catholic, but some time ago they joined the Nemenhah Band, a group that identifies itself as Native American. The Nemenhah supposedly came to the New World from the Middle East with Hagoth, a figure in the Book of Mormon, and settled in the Four Corners area of the present USA.
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[UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, Jon Tevlin of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has also taken a critical look at the dubious "Native American" connections of Nemenhah. He is not convinced either.]
JISHOU, HUNAN — The degree to which frauds can dupe the unsuspecting and to which otherwise intelligent people can believe utter nonsense never ceases to amaze me.
Take the sad case of Daniel Hauser, 13, who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He and his parents refused chemotherapy after his first treatment, saying it is contrary to their religious beliefs. Their refusal led the Brown County (Minn.) Attorney’s office to file a child endangerment complaint against the parents. The case is now in court.
The Hausers are “traditional catholics,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but the crux of their defense is their membership in the Nemenhah. Their attorneys insist that the Nemenhah’s religious beliefs are protected by federal Indian Affairs law, so the Hausers can do whatever they bloody well please.
The Star Trib and other media sources identify the Nemenhah as “an American Indian religious organization.”
Well, it ain’t.
The Hausers are probably very nice people, and perhaps they would prefer not to see their young son suffer through chemo, but they are dupes, plain and simple.
Here is what I have been able to piece together about the Nemenhah Band, to which the Hausers apparently belong.
This is a preview of A sad, curious tale of rampant duplicity and stupidity . Read the full post (1218 words, 1 image, estimated 4:52 mins reading time)Possibly related posts:
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