I was interviewed on CTV National News and it was aired Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
There are a few video clips
Lawrence CTV.ca
| Wed. May. 4 2005 6:33 AM ET A 14-year-old B.C. girl on her way to a Toronto court
Judge orders cancer-stricken girl back to B.C.CTV.ca News Staff An Ontario court has ordered a cancer-stricken girl from British Columbia, who had been refusing a blood transfusion, to return home. The 14-year-old girl, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, wept as Justice Victor Paisley of Ontario Superior Court read the decision. A Jehovah's Witness, she says her religious beliefs forbid her from receiving someone else's blood. Jehovah's Witnesses consider blood to be sacred. The girl has already undergone surgery to remove a tumour from her leg as well as several rounds of chemotherapy. The treatment stripped her blood of red blood cells, prompting calls for a transfusion. The Ontario Superior Court judge said there was nothing faulty in an April 11 ruling by a B.C. judge ordering her to receive the medically-ordered transfusion. Under B.C. law, only those 19 and older can refuse medical treatment. "We're obviously pursuing it fairly assertively because we are very concerned about this child's safety," Jeremy Berland of the B.C. Ministry for Children and Families told reporters outside the courthouse. The girl and her family came to Ontario from B.C. last weekend. Their whereabouts were unknown, and it is believed they were staying with fellow Jehovah's Witnesses in the Toronto area. Toronto police did not actively look for the girl ahead of her court appearance Tuesday. However, an apprehension order issued in B.C. remains on police computers. Family lawyer Shane Brady says the family came to Ontario to get a second opinion about the girl's health at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, and possibly an American hospital. "She does not want a blood transfusion, but she wants to live," said Brady. "She wants the best medical treatment, but she wants treatment by those who have given this type of treatment without blood transfusions. It's a matter of choice." The family had indicated that their next stop for treatment without blood transfusions would be a medical centre in New York City. Brady denies the family came to Ontario to enter a more lenient judicial jurisdiction to override the B.C. rulings. CTV Toronto reporter Austin Delaney said there are still some legal avenues open to the girl. In Toronto, she can appeal Tuesday's jurisdictional ruling. "Or she can do what the judge here said: go back to B.C. where they made the original ruling, and appeal there." The girl is being examined by doctors who are trying to determine if she is well enough to travel. If she is, reports CTV Toronto, the girl and her parents will be escorted back to B.C. as soon as possible. With files from CTV News Toronto | User ToolsVideo
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Judge orders ill teen back to B.C. for care
Child-welfare officials in that province have power to order blood transfusion
Globe and Mail
By JAMES RUSK
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Page A9
With a report from Canadian Press
A 14-year-old Jehovah's Witness from British Columbia broke into tears at the end of a court hearing in Toronto where it was ruled yesterday that she must return to Vancouver for cancer treatment in which she could receive a blood transfusion that she opposes on religious grounds.
From time to time, as lawyers argued about her fate during the day-long Ontario Superior Court hearing, the girl, who had been scheduled to be in a Vancouver hospital yesterday receiving chemotherapy for her cancer, had allowed herself a smile, in hopes that Mr. Justice Victor Paisley would let her seek medical treatment that would not involve a transfusion.
But instead, Judge Paisley ordered the girl to comply with a B.C. Supreme Court order that had placed her in the custody of the provincial director of child-welfare services, who is empowered by court orders to force her to have a transfusion if her doctors deem it necessary.
And instead of heading from Toronto to New York in her attempt to find alternate treatment, as she had hoped to do at the end of yesterday's hearing, the girl was hustled into an elevator surrounded by a phalanx of police, enforcing an earlier Ontario court order allowing police to apprehend her on behalf of the B.C. government.
Shane Brady, a lawyer for the girl's parents, told reporters after the ruling that she will be examined by doctors at the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, adding, "But I assume that she will go back to British Columbia as soon as she is ready to go."
The girl, who cannot be identified under a court order, has already received chemotherapy, which lowers the production of red blood cells.
While she has not received a blood transfusion, her doctors feel that one might be necessary if her blood count falls to a level that threatens her life.
B.C. child-welfare officials intervened when the girl, with the support of her parents, said that because of her religious beliefs she did not want a transfusion, even if it would save her life.
Last month, the B.C. Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling that gave the child-welfare officials the authority to order a transfusion as part of her treatment.
But even as B.C. officials were discussing in late April how the order might be carried out, the girl and her family left for Toronto, where they met with doctors at Sick Children's.
Those doctors also said they would need to be able to give the girl a transfusion if necessary after chemotherapy, a lawyer for the B.C. government told the court.
When B.C. officials learned that the girl was in Toronto, they obtained a ruling last Wednesday that put her in the sole custody of provincial child-welfare officials; on Friday, they obtained an Ontario court ruling that would allow police to apprehend her.
The apprehension order was not enforced pending the hearing by Judge Paisley.
Judge Paisley said in his ruling that it was difficult not to conclude that the teenager and her family had come to Ontario to evade the B.C. court orders that would require her to have a transfusion.
"What other conclusion can a rational person come to?" he said.
He also rejected an argument by her lawyer that under Ontario law governing consent for medical treatment, a court would have come to a different conclusion than the B.C. court and that he should find that it violated Ontario policy to enforce the B.C. court's ruling.
Judge Paisley ruled that it is not contrary to provincial policy for an Ontario court to uphold a properly made order on a B.C. resident by a British Columbia court, "particularly if the life of that child is at risk if she does not have life-saving treatment."
He added that if the teenager or her parents wish to appeal the ruling that put her in the custody of B.C. child-welfare officials, the appeal should be heard in that province.
"It is entirely inappropriate for this court to start the evidentiary process all over again," Judge Paisley said.
Mr. Brady said that while an appeal could still be launched, the girl will co-operate with the court's decision.
Jeremy Berland, assistant deputy minister of Children and Family Development for British Columbia, said ministry staff would help with the girl's return process.
"We will try to make the next step as easy as possible for her, but clearly we've got to move," he said after the ruling. "The window is not that wide open. We need to be able to start treatment as soon as the medical experts tell us it's appropriate to do so."
The girl had a cancerous tumour removed from her right leg at B.C. Children's Hospital and underwent three months of chemotherapy without transfusions.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that blood is a sacred source of life not to be misused or tampered with under any circumstance.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050504/BLOOD04/TPHealth/