Parents’ wish to treat child’s cancer with Chinese medicine overruled by Family Court

This is a reblog from the ‘UK Human Rights Blog’ site. The blog’s editorial team is
General Editor: Adam Wagner
Commissioning Editor: Jim Duffy
Editorial team: Rosalind English, Angus McCullough QC, David Hart QC, Martin Downs.

It raises interesting issues re ‘best interests’ decisions. Worth a read.

enstar's avatarUK Human Rights Blog

71bl6-vngql-_sl1500_JM (a child), Re[2015] EWHC 2832 (Fam), 7 October 2015 – read judgment

Mostyn J, ruling in the Family Division that a child should receive surgical treatment for bone cancer against the wishes of his parents, has referred to Ian McEwan’s “excellent” novel The Children Act (Jonathan Cape 2014), which is about a 17 year old Jehovah’s Witness refusing a blood transfusion. The judge noted however that the book was in fact “incorrectly titled”:

a question of whether a medical procedure should be forced on a 16 or 17 year old should be sought solely under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction, and not under the Children Act.

This case on the other hand concerned a ten year old child, J. The NHS Trust sought permission to perform urgent surgery of a serious nature on his right jawbone, where he has a very rare aggressive cancer. Its medical name is a craniofacial…

View original post 749 more words


Discover more from

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

COMMENTS can be added here.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.