Can Connecticut Force A Teenage Girl To Undergo Chemotherapy?

"This is not about death," Fortin says. "My daughter is not going to die. This is about, ‘This is my ****, my choice, and let me decide.’ "
But Cassandra’s doctors say that without treatment, she will die. They testified in previous hearings that Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system, is lethal without the recommended treatment. With treatment, she has an 85 percent chance of survival.

Kristina Stevens, an administrator with Connecticut’s DCF, says the doctors’ medical opinions prompted the state to get involved.
"We had the benefit of experts who could tell us with great clarity if in fact we don’t do something, if the system doesn’t react and respond, this child will die," Stevens says.
Cassandra is just eight months away from turning 18. Joshua Michtom, one of her attorneys, says this adds another complicated layer to the case.
"The general rule for adults is that you can say no to treatment no matter how life-saving it may be," Michtom says. "You can say no even to helpful treatment. If she were 18, no matter what anyone said, it would be her choice to make."
Her attorneys say maturity doesn’t just develop at a certain age. They’ll argue that Connecticut should adopt the mature minor doctrine, which allows courts to consider evidence on whether a teen is competent to make health care decisions.
This is the first time a case like this has come up in Connecticut, but other states have considered the question. Michtom points to Illinois and Maine as two states where courts decided that even though teenagers who weren’t yet 18 had refused treatment or didn’t want to be kept alive artificially, there was evidence to show they were mature enough when they conveyed their wishes.
That’s Fortin’s hope for her daughter. She says the state has ripped apart a normal family and turned their lives into a nightmare.
"I’ve never been in the system, never had a problem, nothing," Fortin says. "And all of a sudden we have a medical situation and now I’m being deemed as the bad mother."
Connecticut’s Supreme Court has promised to rule quickly, but that doesn’t mean the justices will decide whether Cassandra can refuse life-saving treatments.
Instead, it could send her case back to a lower court, giving her attorneys a chance to call on mental health experts to prove the teen is competent to make her own medical decisions.