Faith Healing Parents Acquited of Manslaughter Charges

[oregonpackfan]

The parents of a 15 month old girl in Oregon City, Oregon were found not guilty of manslaughter charges yesterday despite four medical doctors testifying that the application of simple antibiotics would likely have saved her death.

They are members of the Followers of Christ Church who do not believe in medical treatment. They attempted to save the life of their daughter through prayer, annointing with oil and the touching of hands.

The congregation of about 500 has 78 children buried in their cemetery who have died the past 40 years. While some of them passed away due to natural causes, medical and social welfare officials believe many of them could have been saved through basic medical treatment.

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2009/07/worthington_jury_has_reached_a.html

[hoosier]

From the linked article:

The church and prosecutors will meet again in court early next year.

Raylene Worthington's parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, go on trial in January. They are charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old, Neil Beagley, who died last June of an untreated urinary tract blockage.

That's pretty horrifying stuff.

[MadScientist]

At least one kid has the right idea

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090729/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_young_driver

Churches that demand no medical care should also demand castration.

Matthew 19:12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

[Patler]

These cases really do raise interesting questions of law, philosophy, religion, etc. If you can separate yourself from the emotional issues, it really can get quite confusing.

Presumably I can refuse any medical treatments for myself. (Can't I?)
I have the right to make legal and medical decisions for my minor children.
My minor children do not have authority to act on their own.

If my minor child can not make the decision, but I have the right to decide for them:, and
If I can refuse medical treatment for myself; then
How can it be wrong to apply that same decision to my dependent?

If it is wrong for me to refuse on their behalf even though I have the right to make that decision, then why is it not also wrong for me to make the same decision for my own care?

Is it acceptable for me to decide for my children only if that decision is concurred with by the state? If that is the case, then it really is the state who has the right to decide for my children, not me.

[MJZiggy]

I think the change comes when it becomes a life threatening decision. You're not allowed to commit suicide nor are you allowed to murder people. The jury in this case has to decide at what point holding out a simple antibiotic or a minimally invasive treatment that would have cured the child becomes murder.

[MadScientist]

If you kill yourself through your own stupidity, there is no legal penalty. If you kill someone else through your own stupidity, there is. You do not have total freedom to do what ever you please to someone in your care.

These cases really do raise interesting questions of law, philosophy, religion, etc. If you can separate yourself from the emotional issues, it really can get quite confusing.

Presumably I can refuse any medical treatments for myself. (Can't I?)
I have the right to make legal and medical decisions for my minor children.
My minor children do not have authority to act on their own.

If my minor child can not make the decision, but I have the right to decide for them:, and
If I can refuse medical treatment for myself; then
How can it be wrong to apply that same decision to my dependent?

If it is wrong for me to refuse on their behalf even though I have the right to make that decision, then why is it not also wrong for me to make the same decision for my own care?

Is it acceptable for me to decide for my children only if that decision is concurred with by the state? If that is the case, then it really is the state who has the right to decide for my children, not me.

[Patler]

I think the change comes when it becomes a life threatening decision. You're not allowed to commit suicide nor are you allowed to murder people. The jury in this case has to decide at what point holding out a simple antibiotic or a minimally invasive treatment that would have cured the child becomes murder.

If you kill yourself through your own stupidity, there is no legal penalty. If you kill someone else through your own stupidity, there is. You do not have total freedom to do what ever you please to someone in your care.

I agree with both of you, but you are both concentrating on the easy and obvious, suicide and murder. I'm not proposing either. This case involved neither. In most of these cases the parents truly want their child to live, they just differ in their beliefs about how much humans should intervene in the will of God. They truly believe that their child will live if it is God's will.

I can refuse for myself what you believe is a life-saving treatment, opting for no treatment or for some alternative treatment. Why then can I not make that same decision for my dependent? If I can't, then the state has authority over my children, not me.

It really becomes sticky when the treatment is a blood transfusion, which some people find morally repugnant.

[Patler]

These cases always also seem to ignore the flipside. The cases are presented as if the proposed treatment is always simple, 100% effective and without complications or side effects. In fact, in some situations even the simplest treatments do not work, people die from adverse reactions to common treatments and significant side effects sometimes are not known for decades. Yet, these possible results are rarely factored into the analysis as presented to the public.

[hoosier]

I think the change comes when it becomes a life threatening decision. You're not allowed to commit suicide nor are you allowed to murder people. The jury in this case has to decide at what point holding out a simple antibiotic or a minimally invasive treatment that would have cured the child becomes murder.

If you kill yourself through your own stupidity, there is no legal penalty. If you kill someone else through your own stupidity, there is. You do not have total freedom to do what ever you please to someone in your care.

I agree with both of you, but you are both concentrating on the easy and obvious, suicide and murder. I'm not proposing either. This case involved neither. In most of these cases the parents truly want their child to live, they just differ in their beliefs about how much humans should intervene in the will of God. They truly believe that their child will live if it is God's will.

I can refuse for myself what you believe is a life-saving treatment, opting for no treatment or for some alternative treatment. Why then can I not make that same decision for my dependent? If I can't, then the state has authority over my children, not me.

It really becomes sticky when the treatment is a blood transfusion, which some people find morally repugnant.

The two cases referred to in this article involve refusal to treat infections with antibiotics. That's hardly a controversial question for 99.95% of the population. A parent doesn't have the right to withhold life-saving antibiotics from their child for the same reason that they can't withhold food, water or air.

If it's a stickier case that you want, there was a story about a year ago about an adolescent who had been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. Properly treated with chemotherapy and sometimes with radiation, it has one of the best prognoses of all cancers--something on the order of a 95% cure rate. But the parents withheld chemo on religious grounds until finally a court intervened; at that point the tumor had grown way beyond the "bulky" stage and a successful treatment was no longer a virtual guarantee. Chemotherapy would make a more interesting case study than antibiotics because it has its own associated risks. But, legally and morally speaking it's still a no brainer: not because it's what the state wants but because it's what the modern image of a rational subject would want. Individual parents may or may not share that abstract viewpoint, but it's the basis for moral judgment in any society. As Kant put it, "Act only in such a way that you could will that your own maxim become a law for everyone."

[mraynrand]

All antibiotics have risks, as do inoculations against various viruses. Some people have serious allergic and/or other reactions to antibiotics or vaccines - sometimes even die.

But this is beside the issue. Patler is correct - individuals have the right to refuse all sorts of treatments, no matter how poor the vast majority deems their judgment. In the case of dependents, all these examples illustrate that most believe there is a line where the state can intervene and compel treatment. It appears that most think that if the cure rate is somewhere in the 90+ percent range, that those odds compel the State to intervene and tell people what to do. No one here would want the State to intervene in a treatment that had a 10% success rate with a high morbidity index. But most would oppose intervention no due to individual or parent's rights, but because they don't think the State can force someone to do something that is obviously highly risky. In conclusion, the principle seems to be that State authority should trump Parental authority, at least when communal sensibilities towards believe that the Parental authority represents aberrant (abnormal) and likely dangerous behaviour. Question is - is this principle uniformly applied, or only selectively?

[Patler]

All antibiotics have risks, as do inoculations against various viruses. Some people have serious allergic and/or other reactions to antibiotics or vaccines - sometimes even die.

But this is beside the issue. Patler is correct - individuals have the right to refuse all sorts of treatments, no matter how poor the vast majority deems their judgment. In the case of dependents, all these examples illustrate that most believe there is a line where the state can intervene and compel treatment. It appears that most think that if the cure rate is somewhere in the 90+ percent range, that those odds compel the State to intervene and tell people what to do. No one here would want the State to intervene in a treatment that had a 10% success rate with a high morbidity index. But most would oppose intervention no due to individual or parent's rights, but because they don't think the State can force someone to do something that is obviously highly risky. In conclusion, the principle seems to be that State authority should trump Parental authority, at least when communal sensibilities towards believe that the Parental authority represents aberrant (abnormal) and likely dangerous behaviour. Question is - is this principle uniformly applied, or only selectively?

I think you have provided a good definition. Parents do have authority over their children even if the "state" disagrees, unless the parental decision borders on the outrageous. I suspect there would not be intervention by the state if parents decline a treatment with a low chance of success, even if there is not a high morbidity.

These cases interest me, and some are even more difficult. I mentioned the transfusion situations. There are some who accept drug treatments and other interventions readily, but believe that transfusing human blood products from one person to another is sinful and a direct affront to God. There was a case not long ago in which the parents said the doctors could do anything necessary, except for transfusion. They believed their child would be forever condemned by God if a transfusion was given. It's a simple "oddity" if you will, and who's to say that their belief in the sanctity of the individual is not the morally correct one?

[hoosier]

All antibiotics have risks, as do inoculations against various viruses. Some people have serious allergic and/or other reactions to antibiotics or vaccines - sometimes even die.

But this is beside the issue. Patler is correct - individuals have the right to refuse all sorts of treatments, no matter how poor the vast majority deems their judgment. In the case of dependents, all these examples illustrate that most believe there is a line where the state can intervene and compel treatment. It appears that most think that if the cure rate is somewhere in the 90+ percent range, that those odds compel the State to intervene and tell people what to do. No one here would want the State to intervene in a treatment that had a 10% success rate with a high morbidity index. But most would oppose intervention no due to individual or parent's rights, but because they don't think the State can force someone to do something that is obviously highly risky. In conclusion, the principle seems to be that State authority should trump Parental authority, at least when communal sensibilities towards believe that the Parental authority represents aberrant (abnormal) and likely dangerous behaviour. Question is - is this principle uniformly applied, or only selectively?

Personally I would prefer that state intervention be allowed only as a last resort in situations where the life of a dependent is being endangered. Even if we agree on the criteria, I'm sure we can find scenarios where it's highly ambiguous whether government should step in or permit families to make their own decisions even if they go against prevailing medical and social wisdom. I'm assuming your "question" is somewhat rhetorical--where do you see selective application in teh US today?

[oregonpackfan]

A '98 report by The Oregonian concluded that of the 78 children buried in that churches' cemetery over a 30 year period, 21 would have survived by the simple medical intervention of administering antibiotics.

[hoosier]

These cases interest me, and some are even more difficult. I mentioned the transfusion situations. There are some who accept drug treatments and other interventions readily, but believe that transfusing human blood products from one person to another is sinful and a direct affront to God. There was a case not long ago in which the parents said the doctors could do anything necessary, except for transfusion. They believed their child would be forever condemned by God if a transfusion was given. It's a simple "oddity" if you will, and who's to say that their belief in the sanctity of the individual is not the morally correct one?

I don't see how the blood transfusion scenario you're describing is inherently difficult. Sure, you can make it difficult by posing an extreme scenario (the child has lost a lot of blood and survival is unlikely but not impossible; are doctors required or allowed to violate a parent's refusal of consent on religious grounds?). But the less exceptional cases are far more common, i.e. medical procedures where blood transfusion clearly offers an advantage and can save a life. In those cases a parent's moral code, whether it's based in a religion or not, cannot trump medical reason and common sense. If we allow it to do so then we are effectively condoning separatism.

[Freak Out]

It's to bad there is no hell because they should burn somewhere.