In ancient Carthage, infants were murdered, cremated, and buried under stone thank-you notes to the gods, in return for services rendered and favours granted. Carthage was not, of course, alone in this: the sacrifice of children to gain supernatural reward points is a venerable global tradition. But we’re past it now in the twenty-first century, in the civilized and sophisticated West, right? That sort of thing doesn’t happen any more. Or does it?
Actually, it does. Children are regularly sacrificed on the altar of some ideology or other. And no, I’m not talking about the mythical satanic cults, or murderous snuff-parties allegedly attended by Queen Elizabeth and the pope. The latter is another story, and a pretty funny one. What I’m talking about is not funny at all. Here is a recent example.
Eleven-year-old Makayla Sault, a First-Nations child from Ontario, died this
month. On the one hand, she was a victim of leukemia—on the other hand, a sacrifice to a perfect storm of ideologies. She suffered from a rare form of leukemia that is treatable with chemotherapy, with an estimated 80% chance of survival. Pretty good odds, if you take your medicine—but this child did not. Supported by her parents and community, Makayla withdrew from chemotherapy in favour of “traditional” treatments; the doctors who tried to take legal measures to keep her under medical care were turned down. She seemed better initially (which is the usual outcome of the induction phase of chemotherapy), then relapsed after several months, and died (which is the usual outcome of not following up with more chemotherapy.) Meantime, a second aboriginal child with leukemia, known only as JJ, is following closely in Makayla’s footsteps.
So what were the ideological threads tied up in the death of Makayla Sault?
Number One is the touchy issue of aboriginal sovereignty in Canada, where the individual and collective rights of First Nations people are in a murky relationship with Canadian laws that apply to the rest of us. Oddly and tragically, it boiled down to this: that the child’s rights as an aboriginal were at odds with the state’s obligation to protect her interests, as it would the interests of any other Canadian child. The First Nations communities treated her as a rallying point for cultural autonomy; her rejection of science-based medicine was treated as a vindication of traditional ways of knowing and healing. The child herself was hailed as a trail-blazer, a warrior for her people’s rights. That sentiment even made it into her obituaries.
But remarks by the judge who ruled in October that JJ, the second leukemia-stricken girl, should not be ordered back into therapy, show a breathtaking willingness to sacrifice a child or two for the sake of cultural sensitivity:
Justice Gethin Edward of the Ontario Court of Justice suggested physicians essentially want to “impose our world view on First Nation culture.” The idea of a cancer treatment being judged on the basis of statistics that quantify patients’ five-year survival rate is “completely foreign” to aboriginal ways, he said.
“Even if we say there is not one child who has been cured of acute lymphoblastic leukemia by traditional methods, is that a reason to invoke child protection?” asked Justice Edward, noting that the girl’s mother believes she is doing what is best for her daughter.
“Are we to second guess her and say ‘You know what, we don’t care?’ … Maybe First Nations culture doesn’t require every child to be treated with chemotherapy and to survive for that culture to have value.”
Myself, I doubt Makayla Sault intended to be a martyr for native rights, or be part of the price paid for cultural sensitivity. I doubt that she and her parents had any strong interest in trailblazing or advancing First Nations independence or being pieces in the ongoing game of sovereignty chess. I think they just wanted her to get better.
Ideology Number Two is the cult of alternative medicine, specifically cancer quackery. Makayla’s “traditional healing” turned out to be largely at the Hippocrates Health Institute in Florida, involving raw vegetables, wheat grass, megavitamins, and cold laser technology, none of which is either “traditional” or particularly “healing.” Makayla’s parents (and later, JJ’s parents) spent upwards of $18,000 for a few weeks of false hope and pseudoscientific therapies, which may have done no harm (as per the Hippocratic oath), but did not do any good, either.
The HHI’s mission, according the website, is “to assist people in taking
responsibility for their lives and to help them internalize and actualize an existence free from premature aging, disease and needless pain.” The bedrock of the program is wheat grass, but they offer a wide range of holistic, naturopathic, and spiritual therapies as well; this is on top of the one treatment that they are actually licensed for, which is massage. The guru—smooth-talking Brian Clement, PhD NMD LN—is in the process of being sued by employees made uneasy about Clement’s claims; in fact, they argue that the HHI is being run as a scam.
One ironic point: aboriginal healing is being discussed in this case as if it were not a variant of alternative medicine. It is somehow not surprising, then, that the Saults were willing to accept the HHI’s range of non-indigenous pseudoscientific treatments, while rejecting the measures that would have given Makayla a good chance of survival.
Further, a major pillar of alt-med cult ideology is hostility towards science-based treatments and health professionals. This clearly applies here. The child’s parents, instead of questioning the efficacy of the treatments they chose (and paid for), blame the chemotherapy for her death, in buzzwords taken straight from the alt-med playbook:
Makayla was on her way to wellness, bravely fighting toward holistic well-being after the harsh side effects that twelve weeks of chemotherapy inflicted on her body… Chemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs. This was the cause of the stroke. We continue to support Makayla’s choice to leave chemotherapy.
The chance of this interpretation being true is vanishingly small. It is understandable that grieving parents would react this way—who would want guilt and regret piled onto the agony of losing a beloved daughter?—but it is not going to be helpful when the next dying child inevitably comes along.
The third ideology involved is the Christian faith—Makayla’s parents are pastors of the evangelical New Credit Fellowship Church in New Credit, Ontario. In a heartbreaking video statement, Makayla explained that Jesus (identifiable by his nail-scarred hands, white robe and shoulder-length hair, plus two large angels in attendance) visited her hospital room and assured her that she was already healed.
But when Jesus came into my room and he told me not to be afraid, so if I live or if I die I am not afraid. Oh, the biggest part is that Jesus told me that I am healed so it doesn’t matter what anybody says. God, the Creator has the final say over my life.
In short: Makayla Sault had an 80% chance of survival; the downside was the torturous nature of the treatment that might have saved her. She wanted to stop, and was permitted to do so, by those who would have served her better by supporting and comforting her through the full course: her family, her First Nations community, and the Canadian legal and social authorities. Her rejection of chemotherapy, validated by a vision of Christ, served certain cultural/political agendas and enriched an holistic huckster. In fact, sadly and horribly, it seems as if the child sacrifice of Makayla Sault served a number of diverse interests—but not, of course, her own.
