Virginia Teen Forced To Undergo Chemotherapy

http://www.wric.com/Global/story.asp?S=5187442&nav=menu28_2

July 24, 2006, 08:08 AM EDT
A Virginia teenager plans to fight a court order preventing him from using alternative medicine to battle his cancer.
An attorney for 16-year-old Abraham Cherrix and his parents says they are devastated by Friday's court ruling but they plan to file an appeal today.
The ruling says the teen's parents must consent to a hospital staff's prescribed treatment for their son's Hodgkin's Disease. That treatment is chemotherapy. On Friday, a judge found Abraham's parents negligent for allowing their son to pursue an alternative treatment from Mexico consisting of a sugar-free organic diet and herbal supplements. The court order requires the parents take Abraham for treatment to Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk by 1pm Tuesday. The family's attorney plans to ask a higher court to stay it's enforcement of that part of the order while they appeal.
The prescribed treatment, chemotherapy, is one Abraham says he can't endure again.
"The chemo, the tests...no it's just too much for me. I am not going to go through with that again," he says.
Another option for Cherrix is to seek emancipation from his parents, making him legally an adult, who could then decide for himself. But the issue may be time. Cherrix cancer has already reached stage three