Faith Healing: Religious Freedom vs. Child Protection. The medical ethics principle of autonomy justifies letting competent adults reject lifesaving medical care for themselves because of their religious beliefs, but it does not extend to rejecting medical care for children. Many of these believers reject all medical treatment in favor of prayer, anointing with oils, and sometimes exorcisms. Some even deny the.
Before proceeding to the paradoxical relationship between freedom and responsibility, let’s return to the philosophical ramifications of materialism.
Faith and Freedom; Mission; Endowment; Benefits of Independence; Supreme Court Case; Accreditations and Affiliations; Student Consumer Information. Understanding American freedom today means recognizing that, while limited government is essential to securing liberty, a government that is big enough to cross any. Ever wonder what happens when you cross a humorless warrior with a Kangnam princess who doesn’t know the meaning of boundaries? Hilarity, that’s what. Film version Les Miserables - The Bishop No Copyright Infringement intended.
Paloma Faith performing a cover of Rudimental's Feel The Love in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge June 2012. Paul Clement, a lawyer arguing for Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, speaks to the press outside the US Supreme Court on March 25, 2014 in Washington Religious freedom. Reply LynnBowman November 10, 2011 at 8:47 am. God has been calling me for a quite awhile to just say “Yes” completely to HIM. I know HE wants me to.
When they reject medical treatment for their children, they may be guilty of negligence and homicide. Until recently, religious shield. Freedom of religion has come into conflict with the duty of. A new book by Cameron Stauth (2.
In the Name of God: The True Story of the Fight to Save Children from Faith- Healing Homicide, provides the chilling details of the struggle. He is. a master storyteller; the book grabs the reader’s attention like a fictional thriller and is hard to put down.
He is sympathetic to both the perpetrators. She told them fever was just fear, and indeed, Matthew recovered. Rita and Doug were worried. Rather than taking Matthew to a doctor, they compromised by calling in a. Christian Science practitioner. The practitioner accused Rita of sabotaging her work with fear, and both parents believed that “defects in their own. Matthew’s illness.
Eventually they called in a Christian Science “nurse” (trained in metaphysics, not medicine). She did. nothing except talk to Rita. Shortly after she left, Matthew began having convulsions.
The desperate parents found an escape strategy: they would take. Matthew to a doctor with the complaint of a broken bone (something the Church allowed to be treated by a doctor), and would not mention the fever. He was. quickly diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and a brain abscess. They had waited too long. Despite intravenous antibiotics and surgery to relieve pressure. Matthew died. The Swans promptly resigned from the church. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit, but the case was dismissed.
Ever since then, Rita. Swan has devoted her life to preventing the deaths of other children from faith healing. She founded the Matthew Project, which developed into a foundation. CHILD (Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty).
She exposed case after case of child abuse that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and reported. Christian Science schools and camps. She documented preventable deaths of Christian Science children from meningitis. The Church fought her at every step, but the surrounding publicity. Church membership (they don’t announce membership numbers, but the number of U. S. A one- woman tornado, she cut a swath across America.
She headed. a child advocacy organization, published a quarterly newsletter, wrote articles, became a media presence, spoke at conferences on child abuse, lobbied and. Oregon for a time during the campaign to pass effective. She was eventually instrumental in getting religious shield laws changed in several states. As Stauth tells the story. Natali Joy Mudd was found dead by detectives in her own home, with a tumor in her eye that was almost as big as the rest of her head.
At the. horrific scene, a police sergeant found horizontal trails of blood along the walls of the house. The trails matched the height of the girl’s head. Natali. had apparently been leaning against the wall as she dragged herself from room to room, blinded, trying to find a way to freedom, before the tumor killed. They didn’t believe in medical care, and they were not prosecuted because.
Indiana had strict religious shield laws. Two years later, Natali’s five- year- old sister died from an untreated tumor in her stomach the size of a. The most common cause of death was infant mortality in home births; something that is now rare in Christian Science because it now supports prenatal.
The very religious couple, who were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2. Brandon died recently under similar circumstances.
One believer strangled her five- year- old. One couple in Pennsylvania lost six children, all under the age of two, to. A measles epidemic involving 4. One couple was prosecuted for letting their. They documented 1. The true numbers were undoubtedly much higher, since these cases were collected informally rather than. In most of these cases the prognosis would have been excellent with medical care.
Asser later. characterized some of the cases as babies literally being tortured to death. In one case, a mother died in childbirth after the infant’s head had been at. The infant’s corpse was so foul smelling that it was inconceivable that anyone attending the delivery. The pathologist’s first reaction was “Not again!” He and his associate had compiled evidence of eighteen children who had died over the last ten. Followers of Christ congregation of 1,2. That worked out to twenty- six times the usual infant mortality rate.
And. it wasn’t just children: followers’ wives were dying in childbirth at 9. One died of a type of infection that hadn’t killed anyone. America since 1. 91. It protected parents from allegations of. In fact, the shield had just been beefed up: a new law to.
He looked into it. DA was uninterested. When his investigation seemed to have reached a dead. He counted the graves of seventy- eight children, far more than expected for a community that size. He. launched America’s first major series of TV reports on faith- healing abuse on KATU in Portland.
Some believers even. Their inconsistent behavior shows that they tend not to have thought things through very carefully. They hypocritically accept. Adults often clandestinely seek medical care for both major and minor medical problems while children don’t have that. In some cases parents saw a doctor for hangnails or mole removal for themselves yet refused to take their child to a doctor for a fatal illness. Many of them have not read the Bible; when a. They have a supportive, close- knit community and face.
If they resort to medical care, they are shunned by everyone they know and may never see anyone in their family again. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and when a child dies the death is considered. God’s will. An insider said he thought that if a few Followers were punished, the rest would rationalize that going to. He thought most of them would be happy to change if everybody else did. When courts have. Jehovah’s Witnesses, they have sometimes seemed more concerned about what their co- religionists would think.
Then CHILD won a federal lawsuit in Minnesota, arguing that taxpayers should not be. Medicare and Medicaid payments for Christian Science nursing.
Unfortunately, Senator Orrin Hatch negated their win by getting a new. Medicare payment for “religious non- medical health care.” CHILD sued again but this time they lost.
In 1. 99. 9, a compromise bill. Oregon eliminating religious shields for murder by abuse, murder by neglect, first- and second- degree manslaughter, and criminal. After this, no followers died of medical neglect for the next five years, and there were major modifications in the shield laws in several. His parents, members of the Remnant Fellowship, were found guilty of. A mother who beat and smothered her child was sentenced to life in prison for first- degree murder.
She gladly accepted her punishment as part of God’s. Finally Patrick Robbins turned whistle blower after the death of his newborn baby led him to doubt the teachings. Church. His assistance led to several prosecutions. She was rescued just in time for pediatric ophthalmologists to save her eyesight, and her parents were tried for first- degree criminal mistreatment of their child. They got ninety days in jail and three years’ probation.
Investigation of. Her parents were the first to be tried under the.
The jury was sympathetic to the parents. The father was convicted of misdemeanor criminal mistreatment but not of manslaughter; he spent. The mother was found not guilty.
They each served sixteen months (consecutively, so one of them was always home to care for their other. She was rescued just in time for. They got ninety days in. No one likes to see children taken away from their parents, and these parents loved their children and truly believed they were.
They were victims too. After five. years without a death, three more Followers’ children died in 2.
In 2. 01. 1, after extensive lobbying by Rita Swan and others, Oregon passed a new. There are only five other states with no religious exemptions for sick and injured children: Hawaii, Nebraska, Massachusetts. Maryland, and North Carolina. Ashland, Oregon. has the highest school vaccine exemption rate of any U.
S. The religious exemption for bicycle helmets is particularly puzzling: where in the Bible does it say “Thou shalt not wear bicycle. Thou shalt take no precautions against injury”? The reasoning seems to be that if God wants a child to die from a head injury, we.
Later in the very year the law was passed, 2. Dale and Shannon Hickman were found guilty of second degree manslaughter.
They were sentenced to six years and three months. They agreed to provide medical care for their other children and were sentenced to probation with. The terms. of their probation required them to purchase medical insurance and put their other children under the care of a pediatrician.
They callously disregarded. They were charged. They were jailed and denied bail because the judge feared their. They pled “no contest.” Their pastor said the father “.
Of the marked graves in the Peaceful Valley Cemetery, more than 2. Society has a duty to override parents’ wishes when necessary to protect children.
It is not uncommon for the courts to order life- saving blood transfusions for the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses or cancer treatment against. But thirty states still have religious shield laws, and every state but Mississippi and West Virginia allows religious and/or. Those laws should be repealed.
The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) requires insurance. Christian Science practitioners. That provision should be removed. The estimates of a. Followers of Christ demonstrate just how.