The rights of children and the rights of parents can sometimes cause conflict. A common conflict is in disagreements regarding medical treatment. The book “The Sprit Catches You and You Fall Down” details a conflict over the medical treatment of a Hmong girl with epilepsy. Her parents’ cultural and religious beliefs about medicine are very different from western beliefs. The extent of these differences is detailed in the movie Split Horn which shows a shaman healer from traditional Hmong culture. The language barrier and cultural differences make it impossible for Lia’s parents to understand her physicians. They often interfere with the medical care which Lia desperately needs because of their religious beliefs and misunderstanding. Society, however, has a stake in protecting every child. Ours is a secular society that relies on modern medicine to insure children’s health. Due to this, we do not place the religious beliefs of parents above the shared responsibility of protecting a child’s health. Parents do not have the right to refuse medical treatment for their child. Parents’ religious beliefs should be respected by society but a child can not truly belong to a religion until he or she has reached adulthood and chosen to believe. Therefore, decisions regarding medical care should be logical and rational.
Lia’s conflict is the result of two cultures colliding: the traditional Hmong culture and the American culture. It consists of speaking English, having at least a high school education, and trusting and obeying authority figures like physicians. A mainstream American family would be able to communicate and understand physicians. They would have a basic understanding of science and the human body. This would give them the un...
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...any religion, even to the point of death. Children are not on the same intellectual level as adults. They lack the knowledge and experience to follow a religion to the extreme of death. A choice of such magnitude is not a choice anyone, not even a parent can make for a child. The Lees overstepped their rights as parents when they attempted to block Lia’s medical treatment. They did not mean to overstep, but they did, and by doing so they prevented the physicians from finding the correct dosage of medicines to prevent Lia’s seizures in time to prevent brain damage. The state was justified in removing Lia from her parents’ custody.
Works Cited
Fadiman, Anne. The Spirt Catches You and You Fall Down. Farrar Straus & Giroux , 2001. Print
Split Horn. Dir. Taggart Siegel. Perf. Taggart Siegel, Sarita Siegel and Jim McSilver. PBS. 2002. Film
...s driven by non-maleficence, or the intent to “do no harm”. They know that withholding treatment for religious beliefs will potentially be fatal to both. While Maria is acting out of loyalty to her religious beliefs, the medical staff is acting out of loyalty to the patient’s well being and that of her unborn child. It would be unfair if no party were acting on behalf of that child. In conclusion, providers in this case must pursue every option in delivering life saving treatment for this child. This may involve legal action. If it were just Maria providers may attempt to influence her decision, but ultimately it would be up to her to refuse suggested treatment. Since her decision affects the life of the baby providers are called upon to save that child .
I learned about the diverse cultures present in today’s society. It is very easy to ignore the beliefs that do not perfectly align with our own. This book addresses that issue very well. I would not blame anyone for Lia’s tragedy. I believe that she was just a victim of her circumstances. Although it could have been handled in a better fashion, it is not anyone’s fault that there were language and cultural barriers. Anne Fadiman seemed unbiased and probably feels the same way about this
In their pursuit of assimilating and calling the US home, they had forged a new identity of Hmong Americans. (Yang, 203) Being Hmong American meant striving to move up the economic ladder and determining one’s own future. They understood that for them to realize their American dream and their “possibilities”, it could only be done so through “school”. (Yang, 139) Yang realized her dream by attaining a Master’s of Fine Arts from Columbia University and publishing books about the Hmong story.
How would it feel to flee from post-war Communist forces, only to face an ethnocentric population of people in a new country? In Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a portrait of a disquieting, often times touching, ethnography (i.e. a book that details particular data of an extended period of time an anthropologist spent living closely with a community of individuals during his or her field work) of Fadiman's experience living in Merced, California, which was home to the largest population of Hmong refugees, such as the Lee family, from Laos who suffered mass confusion when trying to navigate the American health care system. Because the Hmong could not speak sufficient English until the children gained language skills native to the United States, residents of California were not accepting of the Hmong community. Fadiman aims to better understand how knowledge of illness among Hmong and Western medical practitioners differ, which pushes the reader to understand how the complicate medical treatment in the past as well as the present from a perspective of an American observing a Hmong family's struggle with the system. In America, it isn’t uncommon to be judged for your clothing, your house, or the amount of money your family makes, so it is easy to believe that the Hmong people were not easily accepted into American society. As a whole, ethnocentrism, or the tendency to believe that one's culture is superior to another, is one of America's weaknesses and this account proves ethnocentric behavior was prominent even in the 1970-80's when Fadiman was in the process of doing her fieldwork in post-Vietnam War Era California.
Share the story of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.
Swan, Rita. 2010. “Equal rights for children under the law” Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc
While competent adults may choose faith healing over conventional treatment, society often becomes concerned when parents make such choices for their children. This concern has created organizations who work on passing legislation protecting children from unproven treatment by faith healing.
Sharma, Arvind (ND) The Hindu Tradition Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions. Retrieved on January 17, 2013 from http://www.academia.edu/1774717/Religious_Beliefs_and_Healthcare_Decisions_The_Hindu_Tradition
Since the doctors did not know about the neeb, (healing spirit that the Hmong culture believes in) they never could have delivered their best care because Nao Kao and Foua would not cooperate and agree to give Lia her medicine as instructed. Hopefully, this situation can be prevented by educating potential health care students about cultures and the way they can affect the outcome of a
It is important to consider that the Hmong had their own way of spiritual beliefs and religious healing practices. However, after the community decided to exclude Lia from the applications and advantages of modern medicine, the condition of the young girl worsened (Parish, 2004, p. 131). It was not at all wrong to humanize medicine, but apparently, as a multi-cultural community, the Hmong people became too ignorant and indignant over the applications and benefits of modern medicine applications. Staying firm over their religious affiliations and conduct, the maximum effect of healing became misaligned and ineffective. This was the misunderstanding that should be cleared in the story. There would have been probable results if the Hmong community chose to collaborate with the modern society without needing to disregard or compromise their own values and religious affiliations and
Within this critical analysis, I hope to show that the lack of communication and compromise between the Hmong family and the American doctors, was the defining blow to Lia’s ill health. I hope to do this by addressing the following three main points of interest in relation to this miscommunication; the views held by the American healthcare professions on the causes of Lia’s illness, contrasted with the opinions of Lia’s parents. I will then discuss the health-seeking strategies of Lia’s parents and how they were influenced by different resou...
Anthropological studies on language and communication would be directly related to Lia’s case for a few reasons: Lia and her family were Hmong, her parents could not read or write, they didn’t give her enough medication. Also, Lia was taken away from her parents because of language and communication barriers that led to her parents not administering her medication at all, as well as interpreters not being clear about what to give her.
Parker, Michael. "The Best Possible Child." Journal of Medical Ethics 33.5 (2007): 279-283. Web. 1 Apr 2011. .
An individual’s culture and belief may significantly impact the type of services they require. In addition, it may affect the time, place, and method in the delivery of health care
o There is also a conflict between the parents and themselves/the doctor. They want to go along with the doctor because they know he must check, but they do not want force or hurt their daughter in order to get her to submit.