The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a district court’s orders requiring the continuation of chemotherapy for a 6-year-old boy, whose parents refused to authorize the treatment.
The child, referred to as K.K.P. in court documents, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 4. The family was visiting relatives in Wright County, Minnesota, when K.K.P. fell ill in December 2022.
His mother had observed swollen lymph nodes and a rash on K.K.P’s body and took him to a pediatrician. The child began a five-phase chemotherapy treatment on Dec. 20, 2022.
The parents later decided to discontinue the treatment after the first phase due to concerns about the severity of side effects. His mother told the doctor that she preferred natural remedies such as garlic and lemon.
The court stated that the child experienced side effects such as fatigue, poor appetite, nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness, short-term neuropathy, and irritation of the bladder during the first phase of treatment.
After failing to persuade the parents, the doctor filed a child-protection report with Wright County Health and Human Services on Jan. 30, 2023, resulting in the county taking immediate custody of the child.
The district court granted the county interim legal custody, placed the child at his grandmother’s home, and ordered that K.K.P. follows the treatment course recommended by the hospital.
The district court allowed his parents to live in the grandmother’s home so long as they “comply with the court’s order” and allowed alternative treatments “so long as those treatments do not interfere” with the recommended treatment.
The parents petitioned for a writ of prohibition to challenge the district court’s order. But the petition was denied on Feb. 10, 2023.
The district court reasoned that the parents have valid concerns about the side effects of chemotherapy, but said that “after hearing the testimony from all parties, it is clear at this juncture that if [K.K.P.] does not continue with the chemotherapy regime, the side effects would become secondary concerns to those of whether he will merely survive.”
Medical Arguments Versus Parental Rights
According to the court, medical professionals have testified that the chemotherapy treatment gives K.K.P. a 93.1 percent chance of survival and that ending the treatment early could lead to the return of “a more aggressive scourge of cancer,” which would be difficult to treat.“Because of his T-Cell ALL diagnosis, K.K.P. has a physical condition that requires special care (chemotherapy), and he is without that care because his parents are unwilling to allow him to receive chemotherapy treatment without a court order,” it stated.
The parents contended that K.K.P.’s leukemia was not “active” at the time of the trial. However, doctors testified that just because leukemia is not detected does not mean that the patient is cancer-free.
The Court of Appeals also ruled that the district court’s orders requiring chemotherapy for K.K.P. do not violate his parents’ constitutional rights to make medical decisions on K.K.P.’s behalf.
“Given the evidence and the district court’s findings, K.K.P.’s parents’ constitutional rights to the care, custody, and control of K.K.P. must yield to the state’s interest in protecting K.K.P.’s best interests. In this case, K.K.P.’s best interests are served by a treatment plan that is likely to save his life rather than an unspecified alternative plan that is likely to result in his death,” it stated.
“He has very serious and severe side effects,” Ms. Zauhar told the news outlet. “So he has had no detectable cancer for several months. At this point, the hospital’s recommendation is to continue preventative treatment, which is causing the family very extreme fear and caution for their child’s life.”
