Canadians, The National Post is satire, right?

[ricketyclik]

Wrt the OP: Very tricky ethical issue. Very, very tricky! I can't see a correct answer here.

[notyoueither]

I may have let my daughter die of a horrible, treatable cancer, but at least she didn't have any side effects! (Thanks for the pity posts, Elok.)

It's really complicated here due to how natives and their cultures were treated (google residential schools as a furinstance). There's some bending over the other way by officialdom going on now (google Calodonia, Ontario as a furinstance) but the treatment of aboriginals in society at large can still be pretty shabby. Unfortunately it looks like this child is going to be another victim of a very ****ed up situation.

[notyoueither]

... and no, the National Post is not satire (although Fake Boris might prefer that it were).

[Lorizael]

Wrt the OP: Very tricky ethical issue. Very, very tricky! I can't see a correct answer here.

I can! Don't let children die for the sake of respecting incorrect beliefs.

[Elok]

I could see an argument for allowing this in the name of pragmatism--ie, a certain number of wingnuts will refuse treatment now, but if their right to ooga-booga medicine is dissed, it will serve as a rallying cry for the whole community, and large numbers of people will start consciously withdrawing from the medical system as a whole for fear of Big Brother forcibly giving them what Michele Bachman (IIRC) Freud-ishly described as a "government injection." Don't know if that would actually happen, but I can see that as a possibility.

[Elok]

While we're talking about moronically ignorant stuff . . .

(please note the "key evidence of a government computer connection to my computer. A sort of backdoor link that leads to an ISP address for a government computer that can’t be accessed by the general public on the Web," as well as the “sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National Security Agency (NSA).”)

[ricketyclik]

I can! Don't let children die for the sake of respecting incorrect beliefs.

You mean things like "Islam is bad"?

Who decides which beliefs are correct?

[Elok]

Scientists. If they happen to discover that Islam causes, or cures, terminal cancer, I'll at least give them a listen.

[Lorizael]

You mean things like "Islam is bad"?

Who decides which beliefs are correct?

When you have beliefs about facts, your beliefs can be wrong. Subjective evaluations of monolithic entities aren't facts.

[Elok]

There is also the matter of which authority to trust. Medical science annihilated smallpox. Native Americans got (very nearly) annihilated by smallpox. Therefore, I'm inclined to give more weight to medical science.

[ricketyclik]

I'm not arguing that science is incorrect, my question is do I have the right to impose that opinion on another?

[regexcellent]

I'm not arguing that science is incorrect, my question is do I have the right to impose that opinion on another?

Yes.

By the way, disagreement doesn't imply relativism.

[Elok]

If imposing that opinion will keep an innocent child from dying? I'm okay with that. The only objection I consider valid here is the practical one outlined above. Your right to your beliefs ends when those beliefs get people killed. Which is why we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, instead of getting together to talk about Teachable Moments.

[ricketyclik]

If imposing that opinion will keep an innocent child from dying? I'm okay with that. The only objection I consider valid here is the practical one outlined above. Your right to your beliefs ends when those beliefs get people killed. Which is why we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, instead of getting together to talk about Teachable Moments.

By that logic the US ought to be wiped off the face of the earth.

[Elok]

Yeah, good luck with that.