Amish Girl Retreats into Hiding to Avoid Chemotherapy Treatments for Cancer

A cancer-stricken Amish girl has recently gone into hiding in order to avoid chemotherapy treatment. An Ohio court recently ruled that all medical divisions pertaining to Sarah Hershberger's cancer treatment would fall due to the treatment of medical professionals and not Sarah's parents, who stopped the treatment even though it was successfully working to kill Sarah's cancer. 

The 11-year-old was first diagnosed with Leukemia in April when her parents had taken her to Akron Children's Hospital in Ohio where she was to start chemotherapy for treatment. For several months, she was on treatment for lymphoblastic lyphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

Yet due to religious reasons, her parents were not wanting to complete the therapy. Many Amish end formal education at the eighth grade and prefer alternative medical treatments such as home remedies or natural treatments as those mentioned in the bible, which may explain their reluctance to go along with such a procedure. However, Hershberger's cancer may persist and grow. 

As the hospital continues to fight with the Amish family's choice to stop the treatments that have actively worked to reduce the size of the tumors in the last two years located in her neck, chest and kidneys, it has become a difficult task. 
"We've seen how sick it makes her," Sarah's father, Andy Hershberger stated back in August according to ABC News. "Our belief is the natural stuff will do just as much as that stuff if it's God's will."

When the parents stopped Sarah's chemotherapy treatment, the hospital fought to gain control over the child's medical treatment. The court sided with the hospital a month ago and gave power of the medical decisions for Sarah to a guardian. Yet before the ruling was revealed, the family left the state and headed for a natural cancer treatment center located in Central America. 

Though the family's lawyer, Maurice Thompson, notes that holistic treatments are working to help Sarah's condition, the doctors at the children's hopsital believe that without chemotherapy, she will die within a year.