Posted: 08/04/2010 at 4:33pm | IP Logged

Rifqa Bary with her attorney, Kort Gatterdam

Rifqa Allowed to Refuse Chemo

by Meredith Heagney, The Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Rifqa Bary will not be forced to undergo chemotherapy for uterine cancer, which her doctors say is no longer detectable in her body.

Her parents had filed a motion to compel Rifqa, who will turn 18 on Tuesday, to follow a doctor-recommended 45-week course of chemotherapy.

However, her doctors also have told her that she is "disease-free" according to "available imaging techniques," her attorney, Kort Gatterdam, said yesterday in Franklin County Juvenile Court. Because of that, and because "multiple surgeries and chemotherapy" left her sick and weak, she has decided to stop treatment, the attorney said.

Magistrate Mary Goodrich said she cannot order treatment under the law because Rifqa's case is not an emergency and her health is not in immediate danger.

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