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Amish Family Pull Daughter From Chemotherapy Program And Leave Country Against Court Orders (VIDEO)

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An Amish family went against court orders and removed their ten-year old from chemotherapy intended to treat her leukemia. They left the country in search of alternative treatments more in line with their beliefs, but haven't disclosed their location, ABC News reported.

The family actually left their northern Ohio home days before a court issued a guardian to handle their daughter's medical decisions in October, according to ABC News. The battle between the Hershbergers and the Akron Children's hospital began in July, when the family couldn't bear the side effects chemotherapy were exacting on their young daughter and decided to try an herbal approach.

"We've seen how sick it makes her," Andy Hershberger, Sarah's father, told ABC News in August. "Our belief is the natural stuff will do just as much as that stuff if it's God's will."

Maurice Thompson, the Hersbergers' lawyer, has claimed the girl's condition has improved since exiting hospital treatment this summer and that it's the family's right to decide.

"It's the constitutional right, but [there's a] moral right to refuse conventional medical treatment," the Hershberger's attorney, Maurice Thompson, told ABC News Wednesday.

Akron Children's Hospital disagreed with Thompson and fought to obtain temporary legal guardianship in July. Their request was ruled legitimate in August and approved in October when an attorney and registered nurse gained the power to make Sarah Herberger's medical decisions. The court decided the state's right to protect its children superseded the Herberger's right to decide their daughter's fate, according to ABC News.

By that time, the Hershbergers were already on their way out.

"If we do chemotherapy and she would happen to die, she would probably suffer more than if we would do it this way and she would happen to die," Mr. Hershberger said.

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