A strange and winding legal battle over the parental rights of an Ohio Amish family is finally over, after Medina County Probate and Juvenile Judge Kevin Dunn formally ended the court-ordered guardianship of 12-year-old Sarah Hershberger this past weekend.

In 2013, Dunn’s predecessor was ordered to appoint limited guardianship to the Akron Children's Hospital where Sarah previously received chemotherapy for the leukemia she developed earlier that year.

The hospital sought out the authority to make medical decisions for Sarah after being told by her parents that they were intent on not continuing the rest of her treatment, due to how terrible it made Sarah feel. Instead, they would pursue alternative, naturally based, remedies. At the time, representatives from Akron Children’s told the court that without conventional chemotherapy, Sarah could die within a year.

In response to granting guardianship to registered nurse and attorney Maria Schimer, the Hershbergers soon left the country to seek out alternative treatment — a task made especially difficult given the Amish community’s aversion to most forms of modern day travel. Schimer would eventually resign her guardianship in 2014 due to the difficulty of locating Sarah. Since then, the family has tried to overturn the original court ruling.

As reported by Reuters, Dunn came to his decision after determining that Sarah was healthy, active, and currently in remission, making sure to verify her condition via medical examinations, including MRI scans.

He, however, warned the Hershbergers to ensure that Sarah’s health is being promptly taken care of at all times, since her cancer still has the possibility of recurring.

In a statement made to the Medina Gazette earlier this October, a representative of Akron Children’s said, “Family-centered care has long been a tenet at Akron Children’s Hospital. Our caregivers strive every day to involve parents in decision making and to respect the cultural differences of our patient families. We have been updated periodically by Sarah’s family members through this committee and wish Sarah continued good health.”

"Having a free society means that people need to be free to take risks, including risks with their family when they are suitable and loving parents who will take those risks out of a position of love and belief," said the Hershberger’s attorney Maurice Thompson in a 2014 interview with Reason.tv. "It's one thing for society, government, for experts to overrule parents who are abusive, or who are neglectful or who perhaps lack the capacity to properly care for their children, and it's imperative to emphasize that none of those are the case here."

Thompson is also the Executive Director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, “a non-profit, non-partisan legal center dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of Ohioans from government abuse.”