Right, even if he was just some average 9yo kid with cancer, he probably wasn't old enough to voice an opinion (wasn't the kid referred to in that article who also declined cancer treatments 15 years old though?), and any decision on his medication shouldn't be made by one person alone. It's one thing to discuss it with the doctor, spiritual leader and/or family and decide it isn't worth the suffering if it's incurable (which is wasn't) but something else completely to pretend to be giving the meds and not. I saw this on the news the other day and was so surprised that the whole report was slanted against the guilty verdict, saying it couldn't be helped because he was autistic and she was depressed. Well, the mom who drowned her 5 kids in the bathtub in the 90s was suffering from severe depression too, but she still decided to kill her children, and acted on it, and succeeded.