New court ruling on Connecticut teen forced into chemo
HARTFORD, Conn. -- A judge says a 17-year-old Connecticut girl forced to undergo chemotherapy must remain in the hospital until she finishes treatment later this month.
The judge's decision Wednesday also says the teen's mother cannot visit her at the hospital while she is in temporary state custody.
The teen, identified only as Cassandra C., testified by teleconference during a closed hearing last month, asking to finish her treatments from home or have visits with her mother.
Cassandra remains confined at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. She will be free to make her own medical decisions when she turns 18 in September.
Doctors say her Hodgkin lymphoma, diagnosed in September, is in remission but she needs the remaining treatments. She says she is no longer fighting them.
The state was awarded temporary custody after the teen missed several medical appointments last fall and ran away. Her lawyers went to court, unsuccessfully trying to stop the treatment she opposed.
Cassandras's mother, Jakie Fortin, told "CBS This Morning" in January she thought it should be Cassandra's choice whether or not to undergo chemotherapy.
"She does not want the toxins. She does not want people telling her what to do with her body and how to treat it," Fortin said at the time. Cassandra told the Associated Press she didn't want the drugs even though she understood that "death is the outcome of refusing chemo."
However, once the cancer was declared in remission last month, the teen admitted, "Knowing now that the chemo wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, I probably wouldn't fight so hard against it."
The treatment's success "kind of made it a lot easier to accept everything that has gone on here," she said in March. "I'm still never going to be completely happy with how this happened, having this treatment forced upon me. ... It's my body."