Chemo or death?

There's an 11-year-old who is being forced by CAS to have chemotherapy against his will. What surprises me about the reactions to this is that a lot of people seem to think that no one could make an informed decision about whether to let themselves die at the age of 11. Now the particular boy in this case has FAS, which might make a difference, I don't know enough about it, but people are saying no 11-year-old whatosever could possibly make this decision, which really surprises me.

Death is serious. It's the most permanent thing ever. You're gone, forever, never coming back. But because it's so serious and permanent, that actually makes this a less complex decision (and a decision more within the range of an 11-year-old's abilities) than some of the other decisions a person might have to make in life. You get survival statistics for the chemo treatment (which I have seen published but can't find ATM), you get a description from the doctor of what death without chemo would be like, then you go home and mull it over for a bit. In light of the foregoing, do you want to cease to exist? (y/n). It's not as complex as having to decide whether to save the life of a pregnant woman or her unborn baby. It's not as complex as house/apartment/condo/downtown/midtown/north york/what if i get married/what if i lose my job? It's not as complex as if you've been kidnapped by the Congolese army and they tell you to rape your child or they'll kill all your children. It's not even as complex as trying to figure out how far to drive to buy locally grown produce and what if it's not organic and what if it goes bad before you can eat it all? If you reduced chemo or death to an algorithm, you wouldn't even need a big chart to work it out, you could use an old-fashioned scales.

Thinking back to when I was 11, I did have some trouble with nuance. I knew I had to leave the church, but couldn't express why. I don't think I could have diplomatically suggested that someone wear something else. I couldn't have seduced someone even if I had wanted to. I probably wouldn't have been able to grok transgender. But I understood that death was permanent just as well as I do today. I haven't had any new information or enlightenment about the permanence of death since then. I don't know if I could have single-handedly made a decision about whether to get my pet put down at that age, but I could have decided whether to get myself put down just as well as I can now.

Actually, now that I think about it, earlier in childhood I tended to see it more in black and white: Death bad, life good. Then as I accumulated age and experience and maturity, I started to grok that sometimes mere survival is insufficient, in the words of Seven of Nine. It occurs to me that perhaps the fact that this boy thought of the idea of letting himself die may indicate that he is capable of grasping the nuances.