by Shirley Gooding

Created on: May 22, 2009   Last Updated: May 27, 2009

An issue I have not seen addressed in the Universal Healthcare concerns for America is happening as I write this. A single mom from Minnesota, has fled to Mexico with her 13-year-old cancer striken son, because a judge ordered them to get chemo-therapy. Neither the child nor the mother wants to have potentially lethal chemicals coursing through his body and they are opting for alternative treatment in another country.

This mother and her ill child, are being hunted down by government officials because they feel they know what is best. There is no mention in the ruling who will be paying for the treatment, which is often expensive and has severe side-effects and dubious outcomes.

This should be a wake-up call for all Americans, if Universal Health care is adopted by politicians. Your government, not the patient or doctor, will have the final say in your course of treatment. Religous beliefs and parental rights will be ignored or obliterated. This is already happening with mandatory vaccinations for children going to public schools in most states.

If an adult were forced into mandatory treatment against their will, it would be considered assault and battery. Children, however, are concerns only for government entities and are subjected to brutal assaults on their persons, in the form of multiple injections on immature immune systems, mandatory dieting if officials deem them too obese and of course whatever invasive cancer treatment a medically un-trained judge decides is appropriate.

As the concept of Universal healthcare becomes more entrenched and politicians get drunk with more power over our lives, the next step will be rationing, all in the name of saving money. The first people they will target must be the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill and the terminal. This was already tried in the 1930's, when children born with Down syndrome as well as the parents, were steralized. The children were then institutionalized in government run facilities where many died of neglect or brutalization.

Many abortions performed today are on the potentially disabled, with pre-natal testing of at risk mothers, strongly "encouraged". I resisted all such attempts and gave birth at age 35, to a healthy son. If the test had been performed (an amniosynthesis), there could have been the loss of this child. As it was I had lost four.

I believe the government will put restrictions on who may get pregnant, if they take over our healthcare. They are already talking about restricting who may get fertility treatments. If you have what officials say it too many children, you may not get implanted with anymore embryos. Sounds a bit like China and their inane one child policy and mandatory abortions for subsequent pregnancies.

All of these issues must be addressed before universal healthcare is embraced by the American public. They are issues that need to be put out in the open and no decisions should be made until there are solutions.

Learn more about this author, Shirley Gooding.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.