07/24/2006

By SONJA BARISIC  / Associated Press

A 16-year-old cancer patient was headed to court Tuesday with his lawyers to try to block a judge's order requiring him to report to a hospital the same day for treatment as doctors deem necessary.

A juvenile court judge on Monday denied a request by lawyers for Starchild Abraham Cherrix and his parents to stay his order pending an appeal in a higher court, said John Stepanovich, attorney for Jay and Rose Cherrix.

Lawyers also asked the Accomack County Circuit Court to take over the case and grant the stay, and a hearing was set for noon Tuesday in that court, Stepanovich said.

Abraham and his parents will appear at the hearing with their lawyers, Stepanovich said. He said the Circuit Court was aware that the order required Abraham to be at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk — about 80 miles from the courthouse — by 1 p.m. Tuesday.

"I'll fight until I do die. I'm not going to let it go," Abraham said Monday by phone from his home in Chincoteague on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

"I would rather die healthy and strong and in my house than die in a hospital bed, bedridden and unable to even open my eyes," said Abraham, who was so weakened by three months of chemotherapy last year that at times he could barely walk.

He refused a second round of chemotherapy when he learned early this year that his Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes, was active again, choosing instead to go on a sugar-free, organic diet and take herbal supplements under the supervision of a clinic in Mexico. A social worker then asked a judge to require the teen to continue conventional treatment.

"I've got nothing to lose by what I'm doing," Abraham said. "I truly do believe that this (alternative treatment) is going to cure me."

Also Monday, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell filed a brief in support of a stay.

"The attorney general believes Abraham Cherrix deserves the right to appeal this decision to the Circuit Court prior to his undergoing medical treatment," said J. Tucker Martin, spokesman for McDonnell.

The family is legally entitled to a new trial in Circuit Court, said Stepanovich, who said he also would appeal to higher courts if necessary. "If we're forced to go through with the order, then there's no way to undo the chemotherapy and radiation and essentially that would moot our statutory right to appeal," he said.

Abraham's father said he was confident that "a judge somewhere will stop this madness that's going on." If a stay is not granted, the family will "search our consciences and do what's right," Jay Cherrix said.

In his order Friday, Judge Jesse E. Demps also found Jay and Rose Cherrix neglectful for allowing their son to pursue alternative treatment. He required them to continue sharing custody of Abraham with the Accomack County Department of Social Services, as he previously had ordered.

Social Services officials have declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

Parents don't always know what is medically best for their children, said Art Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

"At the end of the day, the government's obligation is to protect the interests of those not quite old enough yet to really make their own choices," Caplan said. "If this was a 25-year-old who said I didn't want to do this, there would be no case, no issue, no story."

However, the judge's order could be difficult to enforce, Caplan said.

"I don't think they're going to want to shackle Abraham to the table and try to give him chemotherapy," he said. "If he's uncooperative, he could wind up not getting treated. It's hard for me to imagine the state police holding him in a straight jacket."

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On the Net:

Abraham Cherrix: http://www.abrahamsjourney.com