|
 |
Jensen's friends and family plead their case
Friday, Aug. 29, 2003
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510050437,00.html
The following letter was written by friends and family of Parker Jensen and his parents Daren and Barbara Jensen, who are fighting attempts by state agencies to place Parker in state custody and force the Sandy boy to undergo chemotherapy.
To all Utahns interested in Preserving the Sanctity of Parental Rights:
Parker Jensen, a 12-year-old boy who continues to be in great
health, is disappointing his former doctors. His doctors said his cancer would be fully metastasized
within two weeks of his proposed chemotherapy in May of this year. It has almost been a year since
his original growth was found and he is feeling fine.
His parents have continued to refuse coerced chemotherapy for the lad
because of one reason. They aren't convinced he needs it. It is that simple. No one has been able to
independently confirm that Parker has what his doctors said he has. And this greatly influences the
type of chemotherapy or other treatment that might be needed.
Parker's family had to request nearly all the confirmatory tests
which Parker had this past spring and summer because they wanted to be sure their son needed this
toxic therapy which assuredly has such potentially terrible side effects that every loving parent
would want to make sure their child really needed it before they would allow it.
Parker's parents were told Parker had Ewing's sarcoma, but all the
second opinions they got revealed that this form of cancer rarely starts in soft tissue. It was a
growth on Parker's tongue which started the controversy. Test after confirmatory test failed to
reveal that Parker had ever had any spread of the disease which usually triggers a recommendation
for chemotherapy. And the parents wanted confirmatory, independent evaluation of the tissue taken
from Parker's growth. They were not happy with the hospital's refusal to order confirmatory testing
so they terminated their relationship with the hospital, extending their search to other more
cordial, concerned experts in this field.
Because the doctors and hospital Parker's parents consulted could not
prove to the satisfaction of Parker's parents that Parker had a disease which really required
chemotherapy, they were turned into DCFS (Division of Children and Family Services), a state agency
supposedly dedicated to helping children abused by their parents. But it wasn't the parents who have
and are abusing Parker. It is the state of Utah which proposes to abuse this boy by forcing him to
have chemicals so toxic put into his veins that he will go sterile and will not grow beyond his
12-year-old stature. The chemotherapy may also destroy his bone marrow or kill him.
Statistically the doctors say he must have cancer and it must have
spread, but no objective test has found it. Social workers and doctors think that a serving of 48
weeks of chemotherapy is no worse than a dose of, say amoxicillin, for an earache. They believe the
side effects are worth it to prevent the spread of cancer that the Jensens aren't convinced the boy
has.
Now ask yourself, would this couple risk hearth and home, their good
reputation, their job, their standing in the community and their whole fortune if they weren't
sincere in this?
Parker has defied all the early statistical predictions. He is still
well, happy and completely without symptoms. His parents were told in April that by mid-May he would
be nearly dead from this ES. To date, he is still without any symptoms.
We, the family and friends of Parker Jensen, believe that the state
of Utah has acted with recklessness, overt zealotry and with complete disregard for the sanctity of
parent-child relationship.
We urge you to contact three groups:
1. Your state legislators: Please ask them to pass laws which forever
forbid DCFS from ever intervening between an non-abused child and his parents when it comes to
chemotherapy. Let this forever be a decision that only the parents with their clergy and with their
God and their child make privately and without interference.
2. The Utah State Attorney General: Please ask Mr. (Mark) Shurtleff
by phone or by letter, how this case could have come to destroy such a fine Utah family and put them
to the kind of shame that only should be reserved for common criminals. Ask him if this is what he
would want for his 12-year-old boy.
3. Party caucuses: Please attend your party caucuses and vote for
state representatives who will reign in the abusive DCFS and its recalcitrant investigators. Don't
allow them to make false, misleading, and incomplete reports that were never drafted as a result of
interviews, investigations, and recorded statements. Help us preserve the sanctity of parental
rights forever more in this great state of Utah.
Parker's parents have been charged with felony kidnapping, an outrage
for this stable, well-loved, law-abiding members of our close knit Utah society. Their roots run
deep. They simply do not believe Parker has a disease requiring chemotherapy. What does he have? His
parents need the freedom to continue to have Parker evaluated. Why wasn't this time granted for his
parents to do this? Is there something more we need to know about the relationship between
hospitals, the DCFS, and attorneys general? We have questions for the DCFS. What steps did you take
to investigate and handle this case? What steps are they required to do? What steps were left out?
Please pray for — and lend moral support to — Parker Jensen and
his parents from Sandy, Utah.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Page posted by SDA, Aug. 31, 2003
Last updated August 31, 2003
|
|
