Kristen LaBrie – Child Killer or Political Scapegoat?
I’m not defending Kristen LaBrie. Her case is hardly clear-cut. This single mother was convicted of attempted murder, among other charges, for ceasing to give chemotherapy to her 9-year old autistic and cancer-stricken son, Jeremy Fraser. He eventually died and she will spend 8 - 10 years behind bars.
Nagging questions began to arise for me:
1. If LaBrie is guilty of withholding treatment, can insurance companies be guilty of withholding treatment as well? Or how about the doctors with a financially vested interest in chemotherapy? Can they be held legally responsible? Or the pharmaceutical companies who mass produce these “wonder drugs” with notoriously dismal success rates?
If these corporate giants were convicted, would their actions be shamed by a sanctimonious judge, as LaBrie's were, and deemed “extended, secretive, and calculated…acts that really do chill one’s soul.”
Big pharma and the healthcare industry have been chilling my soul for many years now. Extended, secretive and calculated? Check, check and check.
Like LaBrie, insurance companies have withheld treatment from my family members, friends and myself. When is my court date? Oh that’s right. They’d legally wallop a little nobody like me. Hell, I might get a “cease and decease or we’ll eviscerate you” by the time you finish reading this piece.
2. Why do we sound so judgmental when it comes to crimes involving mothers? I get it. It’s supposedly the worst of the worst, a mother harming her child. But why do these trials and the public reaction to them seem reminiscent of a witch burning or some Victorian-era public scolding?
I can’t help but think if the father were on trial, the tone would be remarkably different (in this case, the father died in a motorcycle accident several years ago. You will not read much about him. He’s an invisible part of this story now.)
We’ve grown entirely too accustomed to expecting single mothers to successfully raise children. There is little to no allowance for the stress any single mother is under, let alone one raising a child with an illness or handicap. Mothers are not the only caretakers of our children! We should expect no more or no less from them than fathers.
3. While we focus on LaBrie, are more of our rights quietly slipping away?
While the media and public morally toss stones at LaBrie, our civil rights continue to slowly erode. Yes, a child has rights too, but so do the parents. Whether you agree with it or not, LaBrie made a choice that countered the medical establishment. She broke free from a highly flawed and corrupt system and made her own choice; unfortunately, one based in enormous stress, fear and financial hardship.
We're often forced to agree with a healthcare system that leaves us little freedom to decide. And the decision is not based on what is best for you, but what your company will allow you to do. If you don’t buy into the protracted and questionable go-to "answer" that is chemotherapy, you are considered some sort of heretic.
On top of that, many of us hopelessly suffer from “Doctor is God” complex. What he or she instructs is the gospel according to Western medicine. What would you know about your own health, stupid?
“But her child could have survived!”, everyone shouts. “His cancer had a 80% – 90% success rate with chemo treatment!” So the doctors say. A friend of mine had these same “optimistic” statistics and died a few months ago – not from the cancer, but from the effects of grueling chemo treatment. LaBrie's son, Jeremy, may have survived. But we all know it's not as simple as that.
Many people die from the cancer treatment, not the cancer itself. “White House spokesman Tony Snow succumbed to colon cancer” we read in the news, when he died of complications surrounding his treatment.
And hopefully, by now, we understand what is meant by “success rate”: If you're still alive after 5 years of treatment, you’re a success. If you die by year 6, you’re still considered a success! Congratulations.
The cancer industry is for-profit. It makes money by treating cancer, not by curing it or preventing it. Don’t expect honest answers from them. Or, frankly, from your doctors. It's time to be your own health advocate and learn more about alternative treatments - many purposefully hidden from view by these greedy giants.
What would you do if you were Kristen LaBrie? Most of us don’t know the answer to that question, thankfully. Yet we’ll judge someone as if we personally experienced the enormous stress and strain of one parent raising an autistic child with cancer. We'll overlook the real monsters and cast our critical eye on a mother who may have just broken under the strain.
You don’t know what you would do in her situation, even though you’d love to imagine yourself doing just the right thing. It’s called moral superiority and it’s dangerous. And unfortunately, it doesn’t address the darker and far-reaching implications of this case.
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Margaret Hawke
500words
Beth Winegarner
BellemeadeBooks
Are You Talking French?
Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman
Salon.com
Comments
Not Guilty.
I didn't include that point, sweetfeet, yet it remains in my mind: what possible good could it do to put this woman behind bars? Is it worth it? Is she a menace or danger to society? More likely, in need of some serious psychiatric help and community support.
An no, Kellylark, it doesn't feel the same. Though I had a friend argue today that this woman could have been purposefully allowing her child to die (because she couldn't take anymore or whatever the reason) while religionists at least hope for health. Crime is about intent, right? So his point? This woman's intent was more criminal than the religionists. Still working that one out.
I wonder about the makeup of the jury. How many have children? How many have had seriously ill children, have had to make life-or-death decisions? I served on a jury in a civil case a few years ago and I will tell you this: If for any reason I find myself as a defendant in a court of law, I would opt for a judge rendering a verdict rather than a jury. Yes, the experience was that bad. People are illogical, emotional, ignorant, and stubborn, and in the case of the jury I was on at least, the last thing they were concerned about was upholding the law.
I tend to believe he was truly suffering, AND with no ability to understand a thing about it. She was too. I also think medicine sometimes goes too far to save some who might be better off without medicine.
I cannot judge her, and I am surprised any jury was willing to. he spent 9 years trying the best fr her severely disabled baby. I can easily see how letting him go might have been the correct moral decision. Does this make me a heartless, never-a-mother bitch?
So that's what I meant my intent, Kelly. Legally (I'm not a lawyer obviously), intent matters greatly. If she had intended to withhold treatment from the child, mid-treatment, in order to kill him (for whatever reason), that's still a serious crime. And her intent is questionable. But again, we may never totally understand. There may not be some neat and tidy answer.
I only say this because the case is complicated. I wanted to address specifically the repercussions and/or implications of the case because I felt on firmer ground doing that than defending her per se, if that makes sense. Though, certainly, regardless of her intent, I think "attempted murder" was excessive and 10 years behind bars a waste of a person and our money.
Helvetica, Maureen and others, well-put and thanks for your feedback.
And against the government too, for leaving people at the mercy of the insurance companies.
widely lauded Kaiser Permanente integrated managed care consortium as a proven model for a saner more effective health care system. I'd not heard of Kaiser, altho it was founded in 1945 in Oakland and has inspired similar systems in other parts of the country. It offers a glimmer of hope that someone with integrity and political strength (should such a paradox exist) outmaneuver the buffoons and whores in Congress and actually come up with something similar as a national policy, before it's too late. If it isn't already.
Thanks for this, Beth. Meanwhile, I grieve for Kristen LaBrie.
rated with hugs
This case appears to be completely different - more of a "mercy" decision.
I say "appears to be" simply because I will never know . . . a person's motives may be hidden even from themselves, let alone exposed in a public forum . . . therefore, I am not prepared to try and judge. Hell, even if I did know, I'm not sure I'm prepared to judge.
Thank you, Beth, for presenting a point of view which does not have all the answers, and which does not simply stamp all the usual rhetoric on the discussion.
As a general rule, based on what I have read, unless someone can say she did this for reason of gain, IE: insurance money, I don't think I could have sent her to jail. Not on the info the news media is put out.
♥R
r. through the tears.
It is not only insurance companies, doctors, etc. that have been blatantly guilty of witholding necessary diagnostic and theraputic medicine. The Affordable Health Care Act is loaded with emphasis on prevention but lacks compassion or reimbursement for genuine care, for the poorest Americans, especially women!
You missed your calling. You have a more comprehensive understanding of constitutional law than our President or Judges.
Kristen LaBrie is certainly a political scapegoat! It's a disgrace. Shame on them.
How very sad for the family.
rated
I hope that a precedent is set here. Arizona's governor should be the first to go to prison under such a precedent. She willfully and deliberately refused medical care to several people who have since died.
In such cases parents are in the position of trying to balance quality of life against quantity of life while trying to act in the overall best interest of the child. Chemotherapy itself can be debilitating at best, and fatal at worst, and the outcome is not guaranteed. As a matter of fact, no one knows whether the child would have survived had all rounds of chemo been completed. It seems that the mother was trying to act in the child's best interest, and did not intend any harm. Perhaps she made a mistake, even a terrible mistake.
Then comes the State, second-guessing the mother, punishing her for making what for them was the wrong decision, even though she never intended the child's death.
It's not their child, and if the chemo had proved ineffective while ruining the child's quality of life in his final days, that's not their problem. The State has the leisure of judging the mother's actions with 20/20 hindsight, while they themselves risk nothing for any decision they might make.
Apparently the theory here is that the State Knows Best, not the parent. It is the parent's task in life to carry out the will of the State, as determined by the State after the fact. Parents in such situations may make bad decisions or good decisions, but in my view it is their decision to make, as long as they are trying to act in the best interest of the child.
I think this is another example of Big Brother imposing himself into the personal lives of citizens, even into their most important decisions.
BUT that is not the issue here. The issue is government intervention in parents' lives. Are doctors now going to report more and more parents when a child's cancer recurs, as Jeremy's did?
Her lawyer didn't do a very good job. I wonder if she got stuck with a court-appointed attorney. I also wonder how many rapists, drug dealers and other dangerous individuals went free because prosecutors used so much time, manpower and taxpayer money to pursue the LaBrie case?
Glad to see intelligent arguments on this blog. Many commenters on other sites resorted to childish name-calling.
I'm attempting to address the implications of a case like this, not defend this particular case.
If this woman deserves her punishment, then shouldn't insurance companies as well? Or Big Pharma with oncologists in their back pocket?
And BadScot, had the child died of complications surrounding chemo, would you be as concerned about holding the doctors and insurance companies accountable? And even if you were that concerned, what the f$#k are you going to do about it, in this day and age? Going after them? Good luck. Invite me to the court date.
She's a single mother - an easy target. THEY are not. And you know it. They benefit from keeping us sick.
Again (since I have to rewrite what I said for the hard of hearing), I'm not defending LaBrie in the traditional sense. I'm wondering why we expect single mothers to perform swimmingly with little to no resources, why insurance companies and oncologists aren't held as responsible as LaBrie and why we don't see that these decisions affect ALL of us, ultimately.
"Yours is a story where hedonism and selfishness and infantile regressivism is parading as progressivism and social justice. There is a distinction. Sad you don't know the difference."
Hedonism? Infantile regressivism? Really. I do love me some of them big, bad words of yours, but don't use them feebly to bolster a non-existing point. Your comment is the equivalent of a man with a small penis driving a shiny, overpriced red sportscar.
Why should an insurance company, or a court of law, be the ones to decide how parents make medical decisions for their children? Do families get to take care of families, or are we all so stupid that we need an institution to tell us what is the best course of action when someone has a life-threatening illness? My brother is severely disabled. I hope my parents and have to make a heart-wrencing choice for him, and I don't want them sent to jail if they do!
My husband and I just lost a sweet friend this week. She had ovarian cancer, but it was the chemo that killed her. She was a retired nurse and saw what chemotherapy had done to some of her patients. Had her medical advisors not rushed her into the wonders of chemo, she might have actually lived longer and suffered less, even with her terminal illness.
This is a good blog, Beth. Ignore the "Ernesto" types. He needs to grow up.
And you are spot on, re: her financial status. I was going to include that in the piece as well...but frankly, it seemed like I was taking enough on!
I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Too many stories like this. Do you know chemo hasn't really improved since the 50's? It has progressed very little since its inception.
Geez Louise, most definitely. Most definitely. A movement is required at this juncture. They're killing us - on so many levels. And it's all about financial gain.
Ernesto, you are very right. You are very worthy of a shiny AK-47. And please target it at my bed. It could stand for some action.
The BadScott, I did read this case in detail. Hence why I approached any defense regarding her with caution. My point being (did I not make this clear? I thought I did), that even if she was the most evil, troubled woman this planet has ever seen, what about the insurance companies? When will THEY held responsible for withholding treatment? And when will we recognize the enormity of pressure that single mothers are under and stop judging so damn harshly? And when will take a look at the REAL killers, behind the scenes, making money off of a protracted, torturous treatment that's NOT proven to work in most cases?
I do not defend Kristen LaBrie....oh wait...that's the first sentence of my piece!
"And as to deaths due to chemo, there's an entire industry that addresses medical mischief, the legal industry."
There's a bigger industry (the cancer industry, big pharma, health insurance) that continually trumps any legal efforts to hold them accountable for toxifying us to death. They will always win, until we begin understanding our own health better and not blithely buying into a money-making scheme that profits from our protracted illness and death.
"This was a curable disease."
No, it wasn't. Cancer is not curable. It was treatable. Possibly. Just as you say the commenters here were not fully informed, I contend that the people who say he would have been just fine are not fully informed either.
I do recognize your point re: the name of her son. That was my mistake and I will correct it. His name does matter and it was a careless omission.
As for the mother bailing out or lying, we may never understand why she made the decisions she made. And it's wrong to assume that she had some murderous or cavalier intent in mind. She might have. Or she might have been a single mother pushed too far.
And again, my point is that we've grown far too used to single mothers single-handedly raising our children. They have few resources and they have breaking points.
As for justice prevailing, shew, THAT I have trouble fully believing. I don't necessarily believe that this woman is a menace to our society and deserves to spend 8 - 10 years behind bars.
And even if I did, I'd want to hold these leech-like medical entities (that have names too) EQUALLY responsible. THAT kind of justice you won't be seeing anytime soon, I guarantee.
But luckily, we took this "dangerous", financially challenged, stressed out single mother off the streets, right? Shew. I can sleep easily knowing that.
No, this case is hardly the best jumping off point for addressing several serious issues. But it's time we recognize that cancer is an industry.
You say big pharma wasn't in that courtroom. But they are. They're interests are always protected. Don't think for one second that they (the doctors, the medical establishment, the insurance company, the drug companies) didn't play a part in this case.
I have a strong feeling (dare I say, I'm sure of it), the doctors on trial were prepped fully prior to being on the stand to protect their interests first and foremost.
Or even the financial pressure she may have been under comes into play, based on years of having to squabble with her insurance company. So the insurance companies are in the courtroom too suddenly.
Or the doctors who say, "But he was THIS close to being healed by our magical treatment" when they know full well it's not that simple. They were there, pointing the finger.
Or the lawyers or even the judges who have far-reaching connections (possibly) with these larger entities. Lobbyists and over-reaching corporate interests do not stop at the White House step. They creep into court rooms, into doctors' offices, etc.
I appreciate your feedback and your understanding of this case. Thanks to all of the commenters as well. To me, the problems addressed in this piece are some of the most corrosive elements in our society today. If I didn't give them their proper due, I will refine them and clarify them, because it infuriates me that these entities mentioned are quite literally getting away with murder. And we focus on this woman and call it justice? No.
So now the thread has come to an outrageous conspiracy theory about Big Pharma killing us all and covering up all the evidence of their malfeasance (thus relieving you of the obligation to prove any of your loony claims)? Sorry, this has gone from a plausible attempt to question some of our attitudes and practices, to pure raving emotion-driven paranoid bullshit. There's people trying to solve real problems in the real world, and paranoid conspiracy-stories and obscurantism are worse than useless to such people.
She had ovarian cancer, but it was the chemo that killed her.
Proof please? People who are suffering do NOT need layer on layer of anti-science woo and con-artistry.
The mother's serious neglect may or may not have contributed to the recurrence of the boy's cancer, but does negligent behavior automatically assume murderous intent? Seems like if a parent was psycho enough to kill their poor kid, there would be less elaborate ways to do it.
She was arrested only because a doctor reported her when the son's cancer came out of remission. So basically, he DID go into remission even WHILE the mom was missing prescriptions. Cancers recur sometimes. It's tragic, but that's cancer. I guess it's also now illegal to reschedule medical appointments. Looks like from now on, if you have a sick relative, you might have to prove to the government that you're not trying to kill them.
This isn't just about that family. Our rights are being quietly eroded, just like Beth says.