From ABC News:
A Clackamas County, Ore., couple accused of letting their infant daughter die by relying on prayer, rather than medicine, today asked that the charges be dropped, arguing that they infringe on their freedom of religion and their right to raise their children in their own way.
Carl Worthington, 28, and his wife, Raylene, 25, belong to a church that believes in faith healing, and police said that, instead of going to a doctor when their 15-month-old daughter Ava got sick, they turned to prayer.
The infant girl died March 2 from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and an infection, both of which could have been cured with common antibiotics, the medical examiner said.
Do you think these parents should be punished for not seeking medical help? Does their church’s pastor bear any responsibility for this, since he led them to believe they should seek help from God instead of doctors?
Your freedom of religion ends when its manifestation endangers the health (or civil rights or property) of other people.
There’s no doubt that the parents are criminally negligent, and their call for religious freedom is voided by their act.
I wonder if they saw it as a test of faith or perhaps were afraid to anger God if they sought professional medical care. They probably knew that the disease could be easily cured by antibiotics, yet they chose not to. Such tragic stupidity.
I think they should see a lot of jail time. It shouldn’t matter to the court whether or not their beliefs are insane. They abused their children. ‘Nuff said.
They absolutely should be punished. If the parents claimed any other excuse the judge wouldn’t even consider it. Religion is the last socially acceptable justification for child abuse.
The child had no say on this matter. Sad.
They should go to jail *and* to hell. Unfortunately, only one of those actually exists.
Punished, no question. Otherwise, you could make a religious exemption for human sacrifice, too.
Tragically, this is far from the first such case, but fortunately legal precedent seems to be against the parents. A little Googling turns up http://www.theness.com/articles.asp?id=29, and the money quote is:
“The supreme court ruled over a half a century ago that the government could override the parent’s religious freedom in order to enforce child-protection laws. In short, the court ruled parents can become martyrs themselves but this does not allow them to make martyrs of their children before they reach the age of full legal discretion (Prince vs. MA 321 US 158, 170 1944, a case of a Jehovah’s Witness child).”
Yes, they should be punished.
Whether the pastor should be held accountable is an interesting question though. I’m leaning towards no – we protect freedom of speech in this country, but not freedom of action (or inaction).
But at the same time, where do you draw the line? Should the captor of a hostage with Stockhold Syndrome be held responsible for the hostage’s actions? If a person brainwashes another (if such a thing is even scientifically definable, I don’t know) are they to be held responsible for the brainwashed person’s actions? Was Hitler responsible for the individual actions of the soldiers operating under him?
This is so tragic. They interfere in abortion rights to save the life of a child by bombing clinics and killing doctors so why do these fundies think it’s ok to let the kid die once it’s here? Why don’t they just pray for the abortion clinics to go away?
Not only should they be punished they should both be sterilized so they can’t have anymore children in the future.
At some point, the rights of the child have to be defended. We have few problems doing this when there is evidence of abuse or neglect. But if that abuse and neglect stem from religion ….
I think this is a clear example of the elevated status that religion receives in this culture. And it’s one of those things that we have to work to overcome.
Punish. And, that’s a good question about liability on the part of the pastor. If a cult leader were to tell his cultists to commit some crime, he’d be held accountable for inciting. Well, do we have a cult leader in this case who incited members to commit the crime of withholding needed medical treatment from infants uncapable of pursuing it themselves?
A reasonable society can’t work when we have so many unreasonable people. If there were just a few religious people out there, it’d be as easy to maintain rationality in policy as it is now to not be coerced by small cults. But because we share society with legions of fiction-believers, we have to make special exceptions, which can result in BS like this, which is hardly a rarity. Islamist groups, Scientology and literalists of so many religions have been exploiting these irrationality-based loopholes for years.
“Do you think these parents should be punished for not seeking medical help?”
The answer certainly seems clear in this particular case.
Let’s take a different tack, though. I realize this is different, but I want to illustrate that morality is not always so black-and-white. What if, instead of being a religious case, this were about money. What if these parents had a child who was dying, and the only way to save her was to perform a procedure that cost 10 million dollars. The insurance company will not cover it, the hospital/doctors will not perform the procedure gratis, and they can only raise 1 million from a fund they started for her. Rather than going into unrecoverable debt, and putting a burden on themselves and their 5 other children for the rest of their lives, they elect not to perform the procedure.
Who, if anyone, should be punished in this case? Should the parents be punished for being so selfish? Should legislation be passed so that insurance companies must cover cases like this? Should we look down on a society that would let this happen? Should the greedy doctors/hospitals/biotech companies be to blame?
I think, absolutely, they should be punished. And, as another commenter mentioned, perhaps the pastor and/or the church organization itself should be held accountable as well since they’re the ones perpetuating this detrimental nonsense.
I like what trj stated in the first comment…
“Your freedom of religion ends when its manifestation endangers the health (or civil rights or property) of other people.”
Parents: Prison for at least 18 years, so they have plenty of time to be deprogrammed and think about what they have done.
Pastor: Prison for life. What he did is not really any different than what Charles Manson did, which was to (directly and indirectly) convince others to commit murder for an ideology.
Church: Wrecking ball.
They’re damn lucky I won’t be on the jury.
Johnny Fargo -
I don’t see how the two cases are analogous. The actual case involves parents who presumably had the wherewithal to have their child treated, but did not for religious reasons. In your example, the family did NOT have the wherewithal. If you do not have the means to accomplish something, you are usually not held accountable for not doing it.
As for who should be blamed in your example, there are too many variables to consider. Why, exactly, was the procedure so expensive? Could the insurance company have negotiated with the medical providers to lower the price? Could the government conceivably regulate or subsidize the price? And so forth.
Eamon Knight said “Punished, no question. Otherwise, you could make a religious exemption for human sacrifice, too.”
EXACTLY! That sums up how I feel perfectly. They have no right to harm, or worse, KILL another human being, and a perfectly innocent child, to boot…. They should suffer.
OK. If you didn’t like the last one, here are some more examples that might be more relevant.
What if this situation were repeated, but at a national level, rather than an individual level? In other words, lets say a certain religiously fanatic country (na, there’s none of those) had a population that all believed as these parents do — that they had no right to intervene medically and relied on their prayers when a family member got sick. The mortality rates in this country are double those of any other country. Do we then have a moral/ethical obligation to “punish” these countries? And how would you go about doing that? Would you think it right for us to go in with our military and take over the country so that we could impose our beliefs? Would this situation be any different, and why?
Equally as abhorrent, the people of some countries believe that it is OK to strap bombs to their children, or use them as shields, in the name of their religion. Certainly, this is another situation we can not allow. We have the ability to punish them. Don’t we have the obligation to go into all countries like this and punish these people?
One more. Let’s turn the situation upside-down. Take two families, side by side. They are both very similar families, except that one has deep religious convictions, and another — not so much. The wives get pregnant, and it is very inconvenient for both couples to be having a baby at this time in their lives. At the latest possible time in pregnancy where an abortion is allowed, the religious couple decides to keep their baby, because they believe it is the morally right thing to do. They believe this is a human life that needs to be allowed to continue, regardless of the inconvenience to themselves. The other couple doesn’t share these beliefs, and decides to go ahead and have the abortion, even though for them it is also a difficult decision.
The religious couple knows the non-religious couple, and believes that they should be punished for their actions — or at the very least, this sort of thing should legally not be allowed to happen.
Of course, this sort of thing happens all the time on a lot larger scale. Who is right, and who is wrong? Are you coming down on the opposite side of life in this case, and why?
I don’t like the word ‘punish’. We shouldn’t punish anyone. Punishment is barbaric and archaic, an emotional urge we should suppress in favor of rational thought.
What we should do is apply justice. Criminal neglect is applicable here, and the couple’s other children should be removed from their parents’ care.
@Johnny Fargo: in your first example you’re talking about conflicts of ethics and morality on national scales. This tends to lead to wars, and I feel such an example isn’t applicable to this situation. When the courses of nations collide, many innocents die on both sides.
Regarding your second example, abortion has always been a difficult subject. I firmly believe in the right to choose, as I think a child raised in a family appreciative of the child’s presence will grow into a better adult than a child raised in a family that doesn’t really want it or knows how to take care of it.
But then, I’m one of those people that wants prospective parents to pass a test before they’re allowed to raise children, but that may be a bit fascist of me.
@ Eamon Knight:
As far as I’m concerned, this IS human sacrifice. These parents, through their actions, caused their child to die in order to please their imaginary invisible friend.
What is human sacrifice, if not that?
Seems that god offered them a healing procedure, they didn’t listen. God sent them antibiotics, they chose not to administer them.
I don’t think punishment will do any good. These people are at best criminally insane. Jail would not do them any good. They need help from psychiatrists.
Actually I’m quite astonished that so many people here seem so keen to just whip these fanatics. As enraged as I am over their stupidity, there is no fine large enough or jail sentence long enough to bring that innocent child back to life. We have to work with what we’ve got, and what we’ve got are loonies that belong in the loony bin.
I don’t even see a theological way to justify it. I have a devout Christan friend who said the equivilent of this when this first came up.
“God isn’t Mr. fluffy pants angel who grants wishes.
He’s already granted us the minds to think, the hands to work and the hearts to feel. People who rely only on prayer don’t honor him, they blaspheme against Him. They say: The skills that men have honed, that heal your children are not good enough. We don’t use them. No, we want You to come down and heal because we want a magician, we want a miracle worker at beck and call.
It doesn’t work that way. There was a Miracle available for them, in the body of men and women who have dedicated their life to healing, and all the men and women who came before them, who slowly, and so painfully raised our knowledge to the level it is now.
THAT was the miracle.
Sadly, they renounced it. “
@Koboldbard:
Agreed, that’s probably how most believers would argue – God working through human agents. However, I see no miracle at work. Human skills and intelligence have over time made us able to cure a number of diseases. We managed that on our own. God had no part in any of it.
Usually, when believers talk about medical miracles, they emphasize cases where the patient was cured DESPITE our medical capabilites, not BECAUSE of them. It seems the nature of miracles changes depending on what point the believer wants to make.
Sickening. Following their beliefs to their logical conclusion, God is more pleased that they have a dead daughter than he would have been to have her take medication. I can’t believe these people don’t realize that their version of god is a monster.
Put Iron Masks on these two horrible human beings, scratch that, these two disgusting animals….. and, Lock them in a dungeon, and let them pray to their imaginary diety to release them from the torture of life on this planet. They do not deserve to ever enjoy the light of day ever again.
Johnny Fargo:
Your first two second examples (the ones about the countries) are also not analogous here–presumably, the countries you are describing would have their own laws regarding freedom of (or enforcement of) religious beliefs. This case happened in the United States, and we have laws protecting both freedom of religion and children, and court rulings about the limits of each (as kindly quoted by Eamon Knight). The question you pose there is, as Adamus pointed out, one of foreign policy, not one of internal legal precedent.
And in your third second scenario (about abortion), again, I don’t think it’s analogous. In the United States, a woman has a right to an abortion. The courts have ruled that an unborn fetus is not a child and is not subject to child-endangerment laws. As long as the couple who chose the abortion was not in violation of the applicable laws (for example, I think there are some states that prohibit late-term abortions except if the life of the mother is in danger), then they have not done anything illegal. It’s not analogous to the case under discussion because Ava’s parents in this case HAVE done something illegal–they have abused and neglected their child.
A more appropriate analogy would be that of a cult, such as WBC or FLDS, in which the authority figures regularly abuse the minors in their care, “in the name of (a) god” (generally, whether it’s acknowledged or not, that god is the leader of the cult). Imagine a cult whose fundamental tenets include a belief that physical pain and starvation lead to enlightenment and spiritual visions. Would it be illegal for members of this cult to beat or starve their children in order to induce “visions”?
Ava’s case seems pretty clear-cut to me. As trj indicated, my freedom ends where your health and well-being begin (which is why we have laws prohibiting drunk driving, but not drinking or being drunk in private). The parents’ religious freedom does not allow them to deny their child life-saving treatment that is fully within their means to provide, any more than it allows them to beat her to death for breaking one of the ten commandments. Parents have a moral and legal obligation to protect their children. These parents have pretty clearly violated that obligation. Even the Amish allow treatment at modern hospitals if it’s necessary to save a life.
In my personal opinion, child protection laws should always trump religious freedom, not just in cases that involve direct, immediate endangerment of the child’s physical body. Parents who regularly tell their children that they will go to hell, who take their children to those abominable “horror house” displays on Halloween, or who refuse to vaccinate their children in the name of religion should be just as subject to legal sanction as someone who beat a child in the name of religion.
As for the pastor…I’m not sure there is any legal recourse there. Unless it’s possible to prove that he actually “incited” the neglect–e.g., by preventing the parents from seeking medical help when they wanted to–I don’t think he can be held accountable. If he were, then it would open the door to lawsuits against all the people who go on TV and peddle scam medicine. (I’m not saying that would be a bad thing, but I doubt the court would be willing to set such a precedent.)
I agree with nitiniu….What will punishment accomplish?
Stupidity is rampant everywhere, even with those of us that actually think. Sometimes, we still do stupid things.
Yes, it seems silly that they were hoping that their God would do a miracle, but they truly believed that their god exists and does such things.
To me that seems more of a psychological defect rather than a true intent to kill their child.
I also think that right now, they are probably going through the worse punishment they could go through. Knowing that because of their stupid act (or rather, non-act) they lost their child.
I also am quite amazed at the number of people here that are ready to punish the family. If there is one thing I’ve learned working for Social Services is that patience and kindness can never be used enough for those with disabilities. Especially from a humanistic point of view.
“I also think that right now, they are probably going through the worse punishment they could go through. Knowing that because of their stupid act (or rather, non-act) they lost their child.”
I’ll argue with that, Lisa. These types of people believe that either their faith wasn’t strong enough to save their daughter and they deserved to lose her. Or, they believe that it was God’s will and that she’s happy and healthy up in heaven, playing with Jesus and the angels. I’m sure they’ll grieve, but they’ll just use their version of logic to make everything happy again.
My thoughts are still on punishment. They knew what could happen if the child was left untreated and did nothing about it except pray. Her condition worsened and they still did nothing about it. That’s malicious intent, IMO, or at the very least negligence on their part.
Dr Kate:
“The question you pose there is, as Adamus pointed out, one of foreign policy, not one of internal legal precedent.
And in your third second scenario (about abortion), again, I don’t think it’s analogous. In the United States, a woman has a right to an abortion. The courts have ruled that an unborn fetus is not a child and is not subject to child-endangerment laws.”
You make a fine argument from a legal perspective — however, given the vitriol expressed by many of the readers here, it seems clear to me that this issue extends well beyond the bounds of legality, as do the punishments which some would like to inflict.
“Parents have a moral and legal obligation to protect their children.”
I agree. But you do not make a clear distinction between moral and legal in your discussion. What I had hoped to do was to explore the bounds of morality, and get people to think beyond the world of black-and-white in which many of us live.
Making a distinction between our own country’s laws and those of other countries — to me at least — is hiding behind the veil of legality in order to avoid the underlying questions of morality.
Yes, second degree murder with “religious delusions enhancement”. That makes it capital murder.
Give ‘em a fair trial, then lethal injection. … Oh, that’s like “medicine”. It’s against their religion. Then, off with their heads.
How can someone defend their freedom to express religion to the point where an innocent person has to suffer?
And if there is a god, don’t you think he would merit saving a 15 month old child’s life if it is within your power?
Nope. It’s theological Darwinism. If their beliefs are so self destructive that they can no longer reproduce to spread their idiocy to their young they deserve.
Maybe the Pope can come out against vaccines.
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The parents have a constitutional right to deny themselves medical attention based on their freedom of religion. No matter how stupid it may be, it is their right. Even if they are in a terrible car wreck, it is their right to lay there and suffer and perhaps die.
The question is, does that right extend to their children?
I say NO. I have no problem with an adult refusing medical treatment so long as they are informed as to the consequences of their decision and are prepared to deal with the result of that decision. I do have a problem, however, with a child being denied treatment for an illness or injury that would easily be resolved with simple medical treatment. To force a child to suffer because the parents are too stupid for their own good is CHILD ABUSE and should be prosecuted as such.
I also think that those who wish to reject any and all medical treatment because of their religious beliefs should have to officially register that fact with the government. In this way, the families can be identified when children are born and legal counsel can be assigned to represent the interests of the child.
No parent should have the ability to deny their child basic health care. No child should have to suffer just because their parents are ignorant.
Almost forgot….
YES, the parents should face criminal charges of child endangerment, child abuse and child neglect. If there are any other minor children living with them then those children should be taken away by the state and placed into foster care.
I hope that a jury can see through all of the First Amendment arguments their lawyer is likely to make and understand that a reasonable person does not sit by and watch their 15 month old child die of an illness that can easily be cured with antibiotics. I say convict them and put them behind bars for the rest of their lives.
I think the parents should be punished.
I have met a lot of people who believe in faith healing, but most of them also believe God’s work can be accomplished through the wonders of modern medicine. Don’t take this as anything but an exception to all the regular people out there — Christians or otherwise — who do take their kids to see the doctor when they’re sick.
Sorry I’m late coming to this…
Yes, they should be punished. Others have taken the point that the parents decision led to the death of someone else and that their actions should be the cause of harm upon another.
I think the point can be further emphasized by the notion that a child doesn’t have a choice. They do not yet have the requisite ability to make up their own mind regarding what they believe concerning religion, God, god, etc. Until said child is able to make their own considered opinion no parent should enter into behaviour that could endanger their child.
Naturally, the parents would argue that they were/are more worried about the child’s soul than her physical body and that this is why the elected to not seek medical attention. But the law cannot be concerned with anyone’s soul; that is the realm of religion and God. As such, how could any parent assume that a loving God would view their child with anything less than love even if the child’s parents broke some Biblical command to not seek medical attention. Would a loving God inflict punishment upon the child’s soul simply because its parents took the “wrong” path.
If that is the God in which they believe then I would stipulate that their God is neither loving nor caring, nor fair.
I would put them in jail with the proviso that they will be allowed to leave jail and spend the rest of their sentence on probation when Jesus shows up in person to accept responsibility for the child’s death by negligence. They would then be free to spend the rest of their prison term praying that Jesus would do so. Satisfies the demands of both faith and justice.
No, they should not be punished.
They should be rehabilitated. And kept in jail until they do. By rehabilitated I mean that they must recognize that faith healing is crap, that their belief killed their child, that medicine works and prayer not, etc. Until then, keep them in jail to make they reflect on their behaviour and its consequences.
Ditto for their pastor, only more strict. He is the real culprit. The parents are only monsters, he is a monster maker.
Actually, they cannot even claim religious freedom as a guilt free pass. Christianity does tell its followers a lot of junk, but praying and seeing a (real) doctor at he same time is not something mutually exclusive. This is a case of negligent homicide.
It is against the teachings of God, and of the Holy Scripture, that other churches is built in other places, let’s say in the US, or in England, or in Germany, or in Rome. They also claim that another church had also been founded in the Philippines. The truth is, God did not give any right to anybody to build his own church. It is indeed disgusting that today, a lot of ministers build churches of their own. They deliberately oppose and defy what the Bible said – that, the Gentiles, like us, must join or make ourselves a part of the body, or the Church, for us to be saved.
So only those who belong to one particular church are entitled to be saved from the punishment of the god that is saving them. Glad to hear it, yet again.
Should the parents be punished for allowing their daughter to die from lack of competent medical care? I think so.
The death of a loved one in your custody when caused by withholding competent medical care from those unable to choose such measures on their own does seem to be a crime.
Relying on the providence of deity has been a position upheld by U.S. law in the case of Mr Valentine Byler of the Old Order Amish with respect to not having to participate in a government run mandatory old age and disability insurance plan.
Such a dispensation was never construed to mean parents could avoid treating active disease and active pathogens in their children by resorting to and or substituting prayer for competent medical care.
Vaccines are more prophilactic as measures and fall under the prerogatives of parental religious choice as the child is not entirely without some defence against “potential disease and pathogen invasion”.
They’ve just had a very stark demonstration that their religious beliefs are bunk and worse than useless, but they’re stupid enough to still claim to hold those beliefs.
“They’ve just had a very stark demonstration that their religious beliefs are bunk and worse than useless, but they’re stupid enough to still claim to hold those beliefs.:
Sorry, it must have been Gaawwds Will.
I was doing some homework in a culture class I was taking, and came across this site. I was just wondering what your viewpoints would be considering different cultural perspectives. Here is a couple of cases. I am interested in your thoughts.
A Hmong child was born with a clubfoot. The doctors wanted to perform surgery to correct it fearing it would cause the child embarrassment and ambulation difficult. The family however, believed the foot was a blessing and a reward for ancestral hardships. They believed that fixing the foot would cause shame and punishment to the family and Hmong community, and therefore refused treatment. The family took it to the Supreme Court and won.
My question is if you agree with the courts decision, and if so, would you still agree if the operation involved life and death?
How do we honor the beliefs of those that come from other countries, and yet uphold our American values?