Faith healing death. Should parents rights be overridden?

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:31 pm

Bet51987 wrote:
snoopy wrote:...the government, in the interest of maintaining society as a whole, should be able to step in and force treatment if the health of a significant portion of society is put directly at risk. The life of a single child, with a disease that's easily treatable, doesn't fit that bill, I don't think.
I would have to say that this kind of thinking fits a purely selfish person to a tee.

Bee

Perhaps you are right. My argument isn't that no one should step in, it's that it's not the government's business to step in.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:32 pm

It's just a personal opinion but I think that the role of The State is best summed up as:
To protect the weak from abuse by the strong.
Children are weak. Those who control them are strong. They should not be abused by those who control them. Withholding treatment that would prevent harm or death is abuse.
Therefore, in my mind, The State has a role in a situation such as started this thread.

roid · Post by **roid** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:17 pm

i think my \"after separation the fetus just dies of natural causes\" abortion illustration is still valid for all kinds of abortions. My main point is that the fetus can't live without the host, it's at the whim of the host.
If the separation process kills the fetus during the process, or within 2 weeks, then really what's the difference. It's ejecting an astronaut from a spacestation - out into space. If the astronaut is clinging so tightly that you have to kill it before it can be safely ejected, then i guess that's how it'll be.
\"i'm sorry Dave i can't do that\".

Oh, and i just want to make sure Bee that you understanding that i too have been talking this whole time separate from my personal feelings on the matter.
What i would personally do is an entirely different and individual matter. This isn't friendly conversation between friends on this DBB, thus i rarely lift my intellectual armour to expose squishy innards in such places. It'd be too personal i wouldn't feel comfortable sharing it here, the surroundings being as they are.

This thread is mostly just a philosophical thought experiment to me, and is not really a surface representation of my feelings or actions on the matter. (but i dunno, maybe you *can* read depth into it).
As a result - i'm sure most of what i'm saying sounds utterly monsterous. I think mostly humans give themselves too much credit though - When you cut through all the politeness and doubletalk and see the raw motivations underneath, they are rather monsterous.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:10 am

Oh brother! I just watched a show that gave me a good reason for the state to watch over the welfare of children, REALLY STUPID PARENTS!

Tru TV (ex Court TV) has on a show called 'The Smoking Gun-The Worlds Dumbest Criminals'. One of the segments was a traffic stop of a woman driver. Well, when the cop asked her to open the car's trunk, what jumped out, her THREE young children. One was 4 years old and he was crying while the others were visibly upset! The reason that they were in the trunk was because she wanted to protect some item she had recently purchased and it was occupying the back seat. The cop just shook his head, but I was even more surprised he didn't charge her with child endangerment.

There was a case I heard of recently of a woman that WAS charged with child endangerment for this very practice. Carbon monoxide can build up in the trunk and cause the death of anybody in there while driving, even pets shouldn't be put in there!

Since children are not capable of self protection, I've come to the conclusion that there are some good reasons for state intervention when the parents are not capable or willing (or just plain stupid) to provide that protection.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 12:23 pm

roid wrote: Oh, and i just want to make sure Bee that you understanding that i too have been talking this whole time separate from my personal feelings on the matter.
What i would personally do is an entirely different and individual matter. This isn't friendly conversation between friends on this DBB, thus i rarely lift my intellectual armour to expose squishy innards in such places. It'd be too personal i wouldn't feel comfortable sharing it here, the surroundings being as they are.

This thread is mostly just a philosophical thought experiment to me, and is not really a surface representation of my feelings or actions on the matter. (but i dunno, maybe you *can* read depth into it).
As a result - i'm sure most of what i'm saying sounds utterly monsterous. I think mostly humans give themselves too much credit though - When you cut through all the politeness and doubletalk and see the raw motivations underneath, they are rather monsterous.

And after saying that…do "you" really “know” someone else that posts here? I mean I’m pretty sure you are drawing the wrong conclusions about many here, me included.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:00 pm

i don't want to know

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:22 pm

Figures…might shatter your superiority complex.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:07 pm

I'm not your teacher - so i have no need to expel my energies being patient with you. And you DO require a very patient teacher.
You annoy me for many reasons, some are in question, many arn't. i don't really enjoy talking to you.

If you want to learn something - YOU make an effort. Something beyond trollbait.
I'm sick of holding people's hands

Dakatsu · Post by **Dakatsu** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:02 am

Note that I am only lightly following this thread, so don't sue me:

If you are a father or mother or whatever, and you decided not to feed your child, because your religion said that God is the only one to give the child nutrients, would you say that,
a. The government should of stepped in
b. The government should leave this alone

In my opinion, if you answered A, you should believe that the government should of stepped in on this case, and if you selected B, you should believe that the child should be left alone.

So, if you answered, but disagree with the above paragraph, please tell me why, as I would not understand thy logic...

Bet51987 · Post by **Bet51987** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:26 am

roid wrote: Oh, and i just want to make sure Bee that you understanding that i too have been talking this whole time separate from my personal feelings on the matter.
What i would personally do is an entirely different and individual matter. This isn't friendly conversation between friends on this DBB, thus i rarely lift my intellectual armour to expose squishy innards in such places. It'd be too personal i wouldn't feel comfortable sharing it here, the surroundings being as they are.

This thread is mostly just a philosophical thought experiment to me, and is not really a surface representation of my feelings or actions on the matter. (but i dunno, maybe you *can* read depth into it).
As a result - i'm sure most of what i'm saying sounds utterly monsterous. I think mostly humans give themselves too much credit though - When you cut through all the politeness and doubletalk and see the raw motivations underneath, they are rather monsterous.

I understand. I don't know much about you in real life and sometimes you plain annoy me,

but "depth" you certainly have. I read you as a very compassionate person who's empathic "innards" sometimes make me feel what you're describing in your posts which you sometimes hide with a hard shell. At least that's the feeling I get. I don't understand, or maybe I find it too complicated, why someone would post their thoughts that were not their real thoughts. I don't play devils advocate very well so I tend just to post how I feel inside.

There is no one on the DBB, for example, that I would call a monster but there are some that are strictly "blue hearted" and although they are moral upright citizens, they are so devoid of empathy that they have no feelings toward their fellow man or other living things and that goes for bible thumpers and atheists.

If this doesn't make any sense I can understand. My priest is over for dinner and I'm typing fast...

Bee

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:51 pm

Check into his prices for exorcism while he's over Bee and maybe we can clean out a few of the nasties on this board.
I'll go halfers with you.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:53 pm

Dakatsu wrote:Note that I am only lightly following this thread, so don't sue me:

If you are a father or mother or whatever, and you decided not to feed your child, because your religion said that God is the only one to give the child nutrients, would you say that,
a. The government should of stepped in
b. The government should leave this alone

In my opinion, if you answered A, you should believe that the government should of stepped in on this case, and if you selected B, you should believe that the child should be left alone.

So, if you answered, but disagree with the above paragraph, please tell me why, as I would not understand thy logic...

I disagree with the analogy, because it sidesteps the point which I'm trying to make.

I think there's a fundamental difference between initiating the chain of events, and improperly reacting once the chain of events has been initiated. Your example outlines parents initiating the chain of events that caused the child's death, while the news story deals with parent's reactions once the chain of events had been initiated.

I thought of a very good parallel example, that doesn't have the religious element to it that gets people so emotionally involved:

What if a young child were choking, and the parents jump to the rescue, perform the Heimlich (not knowing that it's the WRONG thing to do to a little child) maneuver on the child, crush his/her ribs, and kill the child. How would you try the parents?

It's seems to be a good, parallel example. The child is dying due to some outside influence, that's a match. the parents take action to try to save the child, that's a match. The parent's action fails, because it was the wrong action to take, but it was done out of ignorance, that's a match.

So, the questions I'd like answered are these:

1. Should initiating what caused a death, and improperly acting once the chain has started be treated differently?
2. Should improper action out of ignorance and improper action out of spite/anger/etc. be treated differently?

I'm submitting that for both questions, the answer is yes. Also, I'm submitting that in this specific case, the parents fall on the innocent/lenient end of the spectrum.

I think, in many people's mind, the fact that there's religion in the equation condemns the parents, because of your bias against it. If you take the "religion factor" out of the equation, and see what happened for what it is, it isn't such a clear-cut decision.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:29 pm

Snoopy wrote:It's seems to be a good, parallel example. The child is dying due to some outside influence, that's a match. the parents take action to try to save the child, that's a match. The parent's action fails, because it was the wrong action to take, but it was done out of ignorance, that's a match.

Snoopy, I believe that your analogy is relevantly different from the case at hand as well. Not all ignorance is the same. There is reasonable ignorance and unreasonable ignorance. An example of reasonable ignorance is parents giving a hungry child peanuts to eat, not knowing that the child was allergic to peanuts. An example of unreasonable ignorance is parents giving a sick child liquid mercury because the parents thought that that would cure the illness. Regardless of the parents' good intentions, the latter sort of ignorance is always criminal.

What this boils down to to me is whether or not withholding traditional medical treatment under the belief that a deity will cure your child is unreasonably ignorant and thus criminal.

IANAL, but something that I think is worth mentioning is that with our current legal system (for better or for worse), you're typically only criminally negligent if your ignorance actually led to harm. In my example where the parents gave their child mercury, if for some reason it did cure their child, no one would file charges. Likewise, in the case at hand, if a deity did heal the child in question, then we would not be talking about this.

So perhaps there is a simple solution here that would both hold the parents criminally negligent and assuage the theists' fears that we are criminalizing faith in God. We could say this: Believing that God will heal your child if you withhold medicine is not criminal, but believing that God will heal your child if you withhold medicine and then being wrong about it is criminal. So perhaps the message then is this: "There is nothing wrong with faith in God, but, if your faith potentially puts others at risk, you had better damned well be right."

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:58 pm

This is why I believe that couples should know what’s expected of them when they decide to have children. Back in the day couples learned from older couples and or their parents, society etc, seems like these days people just reproduce without a clue.

I know this will sound strange, but the church I got married in made us wait 6 months to get married, during that time we had to take classes in child rearing & basic economics as well as the usual taking Christ as our personal saviors. (also other things that I can’t recall)

I know marriage has been lowered to its lowest common denominator to serve the desires of couples who do not reproduce, but I still see it as a possible solution to this problem, as most people seem to be against direct government intervention.

Taking a few classes as a requirement to a marriage license wouldn’t be a terrible burden, as well as having clear laws on the books.

Anyway It’s just an idea since I haven’t heard any other solution, just bickering.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:04 pm

I think, in many people's mind, the fact that there's religion in the equation condemns the parents, because of your bias against it. If you take the \"religion factor\" out of the equation, and see what happened for what it is, it isn't such a clear-cut decision.

Your example is not a parallel. Your example has the parents taking action that they thought was the one that would save the child's life (Heimlich) as opposed to taking no action. The parents in the initial story chose between an action that would have saved the child's life and an action which put the decision to save the child's life in the hands of a deity.
The parents knew that allowing doctors to treat the child would result in a cure. They chose instead to ask their god to save the child or not. They attempted to pass their responsibility off on to their god. I don't see how you can take religion out of that equation.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:47 pm

So, I think I have convinced myself. Here's my new opinion on the matter:

What do you do about this specific case?

1. I don't think can will be able to make much stick on the parents. Criminal action of some sort shouldn't stick on the parents, because they never did anything that harmed the child. It was their lack of effective action that led to the child's death. That would seem to indicate that neglect would stick, but I doubt that either, because they did try to take action to save the child, it was just ineffective. I really don't think there's any charge that could be brought against the parents that really should be able to get a conviction, from the laws that are in the books. This is based on the argument that the parents thought they where choosing between an action that would have saved the child's life, (prayer) and an action that would have saved the child's life. (going to the doctor)

2. I think they should watch the pastor/leaders of the church, and try to catch them in an inconsistency in their teachings vs. their lives. If they set foot in a doctor's office, nab them for some sort of fraud. Maybe you won't get any conviction, but in the process of stirring things up hopefully you will make the followers think a little but more about what their leaders are teaching them.

What do you do to prevent future cases?

1. It's unrealistic to try to legislate against \"faith healing\" as a whole. Too many people will witness to its validity to be able to discredit it based on it simply being a myth, and it'd almost certainly be unconstitutional, to boot. You would also never be able to discredit it based on it harming people, because at worst it's completely neutral to the person's health. Legally it'd have to be treated almost as a supplement, or herbal remedy.

2. It's unrealistic to legislate against remedies in general, based on case-to-case results. In order to be general enough to avoid being unconstitutional, it'd either end up so watered down that it meant nothing, or it would start to implicate medical treatments such as cancer treatments, and the like, that produce highly mix results.

3. It's a bad idea to legislate something that would force parents to seek medical treatment for ailing kids, here's why:

3a. It would be a nightmare to administrate and enforce. You can't keep tabs on everyone. All it would end up doing is make three victims out of a bad situation, rather than 1.
3b. It would implicitly have to carry some sort of financial provisions with it, so people couldn't object on financial grounds.
3c. It would have to be huge and bloated, to be able to properly prescribe when the law applies, and when it didn't, along with how the law could and couldn't be enacted.
3d. It would probably have to have religious-related cop-outs to keep from being unconstitutional, which would make it end up questionably applicable to cases such as these.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:07 am

Spidey wrote: I know this will sound strange, but the church I got married in made us wait 6 months to get married, during that time we had to take classes in child rearing & basic economics as well as the usual taking Christ as our personal saviors. (also other things that I can’t recall)

That's actually pretty common Spidey.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:20 am

ok the child rearing and basic economics I can understand.. but did they really say something along the lines of 'either you take christ as your saviour or you don't get married'?

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:50 pm

Ferno wrote:ok the child rearing and basic economics I can understand.. but did they really say something along the lines of 'either you take christ as your saviour or you don't get married'?

I don't know of any churches that do that... but I do know of plenty that, if you're a captive audience for your 6 months of premarital counseling, will bring up the topic several times.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:39 pm

Ferno wrote:ok the child rearing and basic economics I can understand.. but did they really say something along the lines of 'either you take christ as your saviour or you don't get married'?

Yes, and we had to take an oath on it.

Bet51987 · Post by **Bet51987** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:55 pm

snoopy wrote:So, I think I have convinced myself. Here's my new opinion on the matter:

What do you do about this specific case?

1. I don't think can will be able to make much stick on the parents. Criminal action of some sort shouldn't stick on the parents, because they never did anything that harmed the child. It was their lack of effective action that led to the child's death. That would seem to indicate that neglect would stick, but I doubt that either, because they did try to take action to save the child, it was just ineffective. I really don't think there's any charge that could be brought against the parents that really should be able to get a conviction, from the laws that are in the books.

(Bolded by me) Snoopy, logically you're correct but morally (at least my interpretation of morals), you're wrong. If your religion believes that the parents did nothing wrong, then it's a sick religion. It's obvious that you blew off Jeff's post which said it all. Go back and read it.

snoopy wrote:This is based on the argument that the parents thought they where choosing between an action that would have saved the child's life, (prayer) and an action that would have saved the child's life. (going to the doctor)

The cure for that child was a simple antibiotic that has a success rate far, far, superior to simply kneeling next to her bed and holding a string of beads. Look up witch doctor.

snoopy wrote:I think they should watch the pastor/leaders of the church, and try to catch them in an inconsistency in their teachings vs. their lives. If they set foot in a doctor's office, nab them for some sort of fraud. Maybe you won't get any conviction, but in the process of stirring things up hopefully you will make the followers think a little but more about what their leaders are teaching them.

My priest has no problems going to the doctor when he gets his sinus infections. I know because I've taken him more than once. He isn't stupid and I would not insult him by hitting him with this archaic passage:

James 5:14-15: "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up"

I can wildly interpret this as meaning the one who is sick must be the one to call the elders, not the parents. And, what was meant by oil could easily be interpreted as a proven ingredient of the times, which in this time may be just Penicillin.

snoopy wrote:What do you do to prevent future cases?

1. It's unrealistic to try to legislate against "faith healing" as a whole. Too many people will witness to its validity to be able to discredit it based on it simply being a myth, and it'd almost certainly be unconstitutional, to boot. You would also never be able to discredit it based on it harming people, because at worst it's completely neutral to the person's health. Legally it'd have to be treated almost as a supplement, or herbal remedy.

2. It's unrealistic to legislate against remedies in general, based on case-to-case results. In order to be general enough to avoid being unconstitutional, it'd either end up so watered down that it meant nothing, or it would start to implicate medical treatments such as cancer treatments, and the like, that produce highly mix results.

3. It's a bad idea to legislate something that would force parents to seek medical treatment for ailing kids, here's why:

3a. It would be a nightmare to administrate and enforce. You can't keep tabs on everyone. All it would end up doing is make three victims out of a bad situation, rather than 1.
3b. It would implicitly have to carry some sort of financial provisions with it, so people couldn't object on financial grounds.
3c. It would have to be huge and bloated, to be able to properly prescribe when the law applies, and when it didn't, along with how the law could and couldn't be enacted.
3d. It would probably have to have religious-related cop-outs to keep from being unconstitutional, which would make it end up questionably applicable to cases such as these.

I have no comments to the rest of your post because it smacks of freedom fighting more than child protection fighting... and you still seem to be trying to protect those parents rather than just proofing a thought experiment.

Your friend
Bettina

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:56 pm

Spidey wrote:
Ferno wrote:ok the child rearing and basic economics I can understand.. but did they really say something along the lines of 'either you take christ as your saviour or you don't get married'?
Yes, and we had to take an oath on it.

What church was that?

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:04 pm

Academy Baptist in Philly

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:22 pm

not too surprising. The east coast is a lot different (on the whole) than the west coast. I took a trip down south years ago and was rather startled by some practices I witnessed.

That's just weird as forcing someone to \"accept Jesus\" does no one ANY good, but a hard line Baptist might just do that (and apparently does). Sorry to hear that. As I can see, it sure went a long ways in boosting your idea of what Christians are about. :p

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:54 pm

Well, we could have been married in another church if we wanted…but her parents were pretty much set on that one.

JFTR I like and respect Christians for the most part, and retain most of the good aspects of my upbringing in my own personal beliefs to this day.

Kilarin · Post by **Kilarin** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:14 pm

Duper wrote:That's just weird as forcing someone to "accept Jesus" does no one ANY good

I don't think it would be forcing someone to accept Jesus, but simply insisting that you can not get married in that Christian Church unless you are, indeed, a Christian. As Spidey has said, he could have gotten married in another church.

So no, it DOESN'T actually seem odd to me that a Christian Church would insist that they only marry people who are willing to swear they are Christians.

Bettina wrote:it smacks of freedom fighting more than child protection fighting

I'm not in agreement with snoopy on all the issues here, BUT, freedom fighting CAN be "child protection" fighting. It all depends on what kind of world you want your kid to grow up in.

For example, we could certainly prevent some cases of child abuse if we allowed Child Protective Services to inspect each and every home with children several times a year, without notice and without warrants. But the society we would be creating would be more dangerous than the benefits that would be reaped. By far.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:06 pm

Now here's an incident that really underscores the question of how far should the state or feds go to protect children. Is sexual abuse the ultimate reason to interfere with family rights or religious freedom and do you agree with what was done in this case? Remember that children can't legally marry when they are younger than 18 in most states.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/ ... ME_3997424

This also ties with the other thread of 'Marriage and the Constitution' since it also deals with polygamy. I frankly think this whole 'Polygamist compound' situation is morally sick, especially when it deals in the forced marriage of young female children to older men.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:17 pm

The government may have a right to break up this kind of thing…but I doubt any good will come from prosecuting people.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:25 pm

Nobody on any side of this thing is going to be happy. It's just a really bad situation that was allowed to go on for too long. It's like 'squatter's rights'. If you keep something long enough, it's yours and to hell with what the law says.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:19 pm

The whole Fundamentalist Later Day Saints thing has been coming to a boil for the last couple of years. Warren Jeffs the leader is in prison under suicide watch and weeping to his friends that he was misled by Satan and was never a \"Saint\" of the church. (In the Mormon Church Saints are infallible, like the Pope)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/20/je ... index.html
The compounds all over North America including one here in British Columbia are slowly being dismantled by legal actions of one kind and another as the children cast off from the church for various offences start letting the world know what is happening. There is a much larger story here than the bit covered in the linked article.
Yes it is child abuse in the name of religion. There are limits to what a society should tolerate from it's citizens and the FLDS oversteps those limits. Those of you who value \"freedom\" for yourself above safety and security for children in abusive situations allow these situations to exist.

Come on Bete, time to weigh in on the treatment of women by a cult other than Islam.

(Edited in the morning after a little more thought)

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:43 pm

Bet51987 wrote:(Bolded by me) Snoopy, logically you're correct but morally (at least my interpretation of morals), you're wrong. If your religion believes that the parents did nothing wrong, then it's a sick religion. It's obvious that you blew off Jeff's post which said it all. Go back and read it.

I did read it, and did blow it off. I'll address it, since you have asked for it:

The analogy of feeding the child liquid mercury doesn't follow, because the action of feeding the child mercury would almost assuredly make the situation worse.

In this case, the action the parents took was 100% medically neutral... it was, I suppose, a form of a placebo. Let me say that again: The parent's actions didn't do anything to make the situation worse.

If you can debunk that, by all means, demonstrate how the parents further damaged the child's health by praying for her. Note the distinction I'm drawing between lack of improvement and making things worse. I think it's an important one.

I also have a problem with Jeff's example of "reasonable ignorance" and "unreasonable ignorance," because it's a specifically tailored example. How would to define a differentiation between the two? Maybe you can say that an arbitrary action is unreasonable, but the parent's actions weren't arbitrary. What they did has at least some sort of a track record of being successful. Are you saying that it's unreasonable to use any method of treatment other than the most common, accepted one? Are you saying that it's unreasonable to use a treatment that isn't considered "traditional medical," such as herbal and spiritual ones? Or, are you specifically saying that specifically any spiritual treatment is unreasonable? I think you're saying the last, but now you're back to what I said in my post- legally you're not going to be able to debunk spiritual healing as completely invalid & mythical, because there will be plenty of people who will come forward and will attest to having witness spiritual healing. So, if you force it through, and legally state that all spiritual healing attempts are completely invalid, thus deciding that you're going to ignore all of those witnesses, (on what basis?) how is that anything short of a drastic breach of privacy and personal freedom? How does that not legislate over a person's right to religion?

I also have a problem with the specificity that Jeff uses in summarizing. In order for this to avoid being blatantly a violation of people religious rights, his summary would have to be rewritten as such:

"What this boils down to to me is whether or not withholding traditional medical treatment under the belief that an untraditional one will cure your child is unreasonably ignorant and thus criminal."

The answer, as I see it, is no. If your actions make the matter worse, well then it's on you. If you try something non-traditional, and it doesn't work, then it begs the question of the arbitrary-ness of what you tried. If you tried something that has some sort of a track record, how can you be held responsible if, in this case, it didn't work?

"We could say this: Believing that God will heal your child if you withhold medicine is not criminal, but believing that God will heal your child if you withhold medicine and then being wrong about it is criminal. So perhaps the message then is this: "There is nothing wrong with faith in God, but, if your faith potentially puts others at risk, you had better damned well be right.""

This has problems because it's specifically singling out religion. Would such legislature give people the right to fail if they call their failed solution "science," while those who call theirs "religion" are prosecuted? I think that would be blatantly biased, and thus a violation of people's freedom of religion. So, do you frame it as "traditional" vs. "untraditional" - I suppose maybe you could, and only give licensed medical practitioners the out of not being liable for failing to produce improvement. (Note, this isn't about failed procedures killing a person, it's about failed procedure failing to save a person who is already dying.) At this point, I'm uneasy with it because it moves the country into a socialistic direction, moving more responsibility to the government for them to screw up, instead of the parents, for what I perceive as minimal results. As it is right now, people (doctors included) can be held fiscally responsible for failing to properly treat/etc. a person, but they can't be held criminally responsibly if they didn't royally screw up and do something very damaging. I'd tend to want to leave it that way. Like I said previously, in cases like these, going after the parents will make 3 victims, instead of 1. You can speculate that the parents are these hard-hearted people who feel no remorse whatsoever about what happened, and I'll speculate the opposite. In terms of our knowledge of human psychology, I think I have the strong speculative position.

I have no comments to the rest of your post because it smacks of freedom fighting more than child protection fighting... and you still seem to be trying to protect those parents rather than just proofing a thought experiment.

You are right, in a sense. I am interested in personal freedoms. I stated at the beginning that I had pretty well convinced myself.

I said this in the first post, and I'll restate it. While I see it as a tragedy that a child should die, I'm of the opinion that trying to go after these people won't do too much to change the statistics, because people doing things because of their beliefs are relatively likely to ignore laws that tell them they shouldn't be doing them.

Lets look at some statistics: Here they state that some study found 120 religion-based child deaths in a 10 year span. They state that it's "the tip of the iceberg"- so we'll treat that as a minimum number... 12 child deaths per year. Here is a statistic of 1490 abuse and neglect fatalities. This article also state that this statistic is also underreported. So, with some margin, 1% of child fatalities are due to religion-based causes. While it's valid to think about that 1%, if we view things in perspective, much more good can be done, and many more lives can be saved, if we generally make an effort to educate and otherwise take preventative measures to keep the other 99% of those deaths from happening.

I think a good summary of what this is all about for me is this:

I hate the way I see this being a "religious nuts" thing. There are nuts of all sorts out there, and far worse than nuts, of all sorts of world views- from highly conservative to highly liberal. Child abuse of all sorts comes from all demographics and religious persuasions. So, lets go after child abusers.

On the other end of it, crazy cults show up around charismatic people who have crazy ideas. A significant portion of the followers of these end up manipulated, trapped, and conned. I don't see the problem in cults as the followers, I see the problem as the leaders. Break up the leadership, and most of the followers will end up going back to being normal people. So, go after the leaders, not the followers.

This case seems to be in the gray area on both of these. Their church seems to have some kinda crazy ideas, but it's not quite a polygamist compound. The parents failed to save their child, but they weren't being blatantly abusive or negligent. So, you can see it two ways. You can see them as two different things: you can see them nuts who're completely bought in to some crazy cultist ideas that they know are false, but follow them to convince others and/or save face. They knew better but refused to do what they knew was right in their insistence to stick to the company line, thus negligently standing by while their child died. Or, you can see them as innocent people who where victimized by the leaders of their church, and who were manipulated & conned into sincerely believing that they where doing the best they possibly could to save their child by praying. In case A, they're clearly negligent. In case B, I'd argue that they're innocent of anything criminal. How do you know which is the case? I guess you would need to know them to be able to tell. In case A, going after them is good, more so because you're saving others from repeating their mistake by breaking up their leadership. In case B, going after them will further victimize them.

So, I think the law should aim to go after child abusers, and I think the law should aim to go after con men who use religious claims to commit their crimes, but I don't think the law should go after misled people who fall victim to con men, and misled people who have to live with the regret of having lost their child over a poor decision.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:11 am

Snoopy wrote:I also have a problem with Jeff's example of "reasonable ignorance" and "unreasonable ignorance," because it's a specifically tailored example. How would to define a differentiation between the two?

Not very easily, but we already make this distinction (although perhaps not in as many words): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligent_homicide

So assuming you're comfortable with this law, my answer is to let the lawyers flesh it out. Of course, we want to personally analyze this specific case ourselves.

Snoopy wrote:Or, are you specifically saying that specifically any spiritual treatment is unreasonable? I think you're saying the last, but now you're back to what I said in my post- legally you're not going to be able to debunk spiritual healing as completely invalid & mythical, because there will be plenty of people who will come forward and will attest to having witness spiritual healing.

We know at least this: The state doesn't have to debunk that the spiritual healing failed in this case. The resultant death says as much. Now, you seem concerned, and rightfully so, with devising a legal stance that generalizes for all future cases. Well, my solution is to say something like this: "Only faith healings that work are legal, and a person is personally responsible for knowing if they will." Of course, that opens myself to this criticism:

Snoopy wrote:This has problems because it's specifically singling out religion. Would such legislature give people the right to fail if they call their failed solution "science," while those who call theirs "religion" are prosecuted?

Religion is a special case, so I have no qualms about giving it special consideration. Like you said, the state cannot come to stances about the validity of any religion, but it can do this concerning science. This is why I have no qualms delegating responsibility for a religious healing to work to the individual performing the healing, especially when there are more proven (proven especially in the eyes of the state) alternatives.

Also, the state does draw lines concerning one's right to religion. We don't allow virgin sacrifices, for example. I don't think that the case in question falls under this sort of circumstance, but it does seem to add uncalculatable weight to my argument.

I'm not saying my solution is perfect. But it's one I'd be most comfortable with.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:06 am

Spidey wrote:
Ferno wrote:ok the child rearing and basic economics I can understand.. but did they really say something along the lines of 'either you take christ as your saviour or you don't get married'?
Yes, and we had to take an oath on it.

And if I was presented with that kind of choice, I'd tell them to stick their 'oath' right up where the sun don't shine.

You shouldn't even tolerate being dictated to like that. If a church is willing to deal with absolutes and holding marriage hostage like that.. then IMO, it's the wrong church to be at.

I don't want marriage to be tied to which religion one is associated with.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 10:35 am

Ferno I don't think Spidey was given the choice of getting married or not but rather the choice of getting married that that particular church or somewhere else. As such that church has every right to put whatever conditions they wish on allowing the ceremony to be blessed by them.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:44 pm

which is why I said I think it's the wrong church to be at.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:53 pm

Jeff250 wrote:Religion is a special case, so I have no qualms about giving it special consideration. Like you said, the state cannot come to stances about the validity of any religion, but it can do this concerning science. This is why I have no qualms delegating responsibility for a religious healing to work to the individual performing the healing, especially when there are more proven (proven especially in the eyes of the state) alternatives.

I think this is the root of where we disagree. I would be able to live with something that targeted "non-traditional" cures. I don't like faith healing being singled out while things like herbal remedies & such are ignored.

Bet51987 · Post by **Bet51987** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:43 pm

snoopy wrote: In this case, the action the parents took was 100% medically neutral... it was, I suppose, a form of a placebo. Let me say that again: The parent's actions didn't do anything to make the situation worse.

If you can debunk that, by all means, demonstrate how the parents further damaged the child's health by praying for her. Note the distinction I'm drawing between lack of improvement and making things worse. I think it's an important one.

I can't argue your cold logic of simple cause and effect. The child contracted pneumonia and death was the effect.

Are you saying that it's unreasonable to use any method of treatment other than the most common, accepted one? Are you saying that it's unreasonable to use a treatment that isn't considered "traditional medical," such as herbal and spiritual ones? Or, are you specifically saying that specifically any spiritual treatment is unreasonable? I think you're saying the last,

Nope. I'm saying what is unfathomable is not bringing her to a medical doctor. If the doctor prescribes antibiotics, beads, herbs, spiritual entity's or smoke pots, then I would not have had a problem.

but now you're back to what I said in my post- legally you're not going to be able to debunk spiritual healing as completely invalid & mythical, because there will be plenty of people who will come forward and will attest to having witness spiritual healing.

Please produce an unbiased report that shows that faith healing is better, or at least on par, with antibiotics in curing this specific case.... Ava had bacterial bronchial pneumonia.

Bettina

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:02 pm

Bet51987 wrote:Please produce an unbiased report that shows that faith healing is better, or at least on par, with antibiotics in curing this specific case.... Ava had bacterial bronchial pneumonia.

Bettina

It's not about the parents choosing the standardly accepted best cure for a disease. It's about the parents choosing a cure that, in their understanding of things, had a reasonable chance of succeeding. If you can demonstrate that they were entirely convinced that they were doing the best they could to try to save their child (and it wasn't completely arbitrary), I don't think they should be found guilty of criminal actions, despite the fact that their actions were, from a scientific stance, worthless. If they knew better, and didn't take the child to the doctor out of selfish reasons, (to save face, because of peer pressure, etc.) then by all means, find them guilty.

I'd consider non-traditional remedies, in many cases, to be en-lieu of visiting a doctor. If you're visiting a doctor, you're obviously there to look for a scientific cure, not some non-traditional method.

EDIT:I think I'm wrong just above the above sentence..... I believe I originally mis-spoke. I think that most of the time, these days, people use non-traditional remedies in conjunction with visiting a doctor. Furthermore, I think it's entirely reasonable for the state to say that failing to bring a child to the doctor when he/she is seriously sick is unreasonably negligent. If laws to this effect are in place, then I don't have a problem with that. If they're not, I don't have a problem with them going into effect, so long as they don't make statements about non-traditional remedies. The effect of the law would be that parents are expected to take their children tot he doctor's if they are sick, but they are free to do whatever non-harmful non-traditional remedies they like in addition to taking the child to the doctor.

If a law to this effect isn't in place, I'll stick to my opinion that it's unreasonable to find the parents criminally guilty for choosing the wrong methods to try to save their child, if they did so out of genuinely good intentions. For future action, a law to that effect should be put in place, and hospitals should take educational steps to ensure that child-bearing parents are informed that their lack of seeking medical help can be found criminal.

I think I'm seeing it now. I don't condemn faith healing, but I would be okay with telling people not to go to the doctor being condemnable. It still leaves well-intentioned, but miss led parents victimized from both sides, though. that's why I think the hospital education for child-bearing parents as am important part of the plan- make sure people know.

There's one question that would be tough to answer: Where would you draw the line of when a parent is and isn't legally required to take their child to the doctor?

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:15 pm

Ferno wrote:which is why I said I think it's the wrong church to be at.

from what i'm gathering he didn't choose the church, he chose the woman. The church is kinda like the in-laws, can't choose em, but put up with them for the sake of the happiness of marriage.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:25 pm

roid wrote:from what i'm gathering he didn't choose the church, he chose the woman. The church is kinda like the in-laws, can't choose em, but put up with them for the sake of the happiness of marriage.

I'm not sure I agree. My wife and I both changed churches when we got married, from two different churches to a third one, to kinda strike out on our own. We also got married in a forth, unrelated church, chosen purely on it's aesthetic appeal. If you are tied to a given church because of your future spouse, and have problems with the churches policies, you might want to reconsider the marriage, because that's bound to be a source of lots of future conflicts.

I do agree that a church should have the prerogative to put whatever stipulations they want on allowing you to use their property for their wedding, and especially a minister should have the prerogative stipulate his own requirements if he's going to be the one signing his name on the certificate. If you don't like the conditions, go somewhere else. There's always the justice of the peace.

Faith healing death. Should parents rights be overridden?

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