This story really irks me. A social services agency is asking for a court order to force a 16 year old cancer patient to undergo chemotherapy for a second time. But after going through it once, he doesn’Â’t want to do it again, and his family agrees.

It would be a much different story if this were a little kid and the family was reckless in avoiding necessary and uncontroversial treatment. But that is not the case here, as there are definite reasons why the patient would not want to experience that very excruciating process.

This is a penultimate example of one of the biggest battles in this culture war: Who owns kids, their parents or the state?

Note to New York Times Editor Bill Keller: This could be the scene in the New York subway underneath your plush offices if you do not stop leaking national security secrets.

It is this that you are risking here in America by your irresponsible stories - nothing less, and perhaps much more.