Faith Healers Responsible For Child Deaths Under Proposed Oregon Bill

By Steve Mayes
Religion News Service

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon prosecutors and lawmakers endorsed a bill Monday (Feb. 21) that would remove special legal protection for parents who treat seriously ill children with faith healing instead of providing medical treatment.

Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote and others told the House Judiciary Committee that House Bill 2721 would help halt needless, avoidable child deaths.

The bill is a response to the Followers of Christ, an Oregon City church with a history of children dying from treatable medical conditions. It would remove spiritual treatment as a defense against all homicide charges and subject parents to mandatory sentencing under Oregon's Measure 11.

Supporters of the bill made two main points. It will eliminate exemptions that give one class of parents -- those who exclusively practice faith healing -- special rights. And it puts more pressure on the most extreme members of the Followers of Christ church to provide medical care for seriously ill children.

In the past two years, Clackamas County prosecuted two couples for failing to provide medical care for dying children. Two other couples are awaiting trial, accused of criminal mistreatment and second-degree manslaughter.

Comments

[Bobrobert]

08:18 AM on 03/15/2011

:-)

Another day...

Read your bible... prevent this from happening in your neighborhood.

[Scott Connery]

12:01 AM on 03/15/2011

http://www.rationalpublicradio.com/oregon-rejects-faith-healing.html

On the one hand, it's good that Oregon is moving to prosecute people who let their children die because they refuse to get them medical care.

On the other hand, it's sad that we still live in a country where this sort of thing is legally protected in many places.

[YourNewNeighbor]

04:03 PM on 03/12/2011

MAN I hate religion.

[Rodig]

03:07 PM on 03/12/2011

Seriously, is there a single area of life that religion has not fully and completely corrupted? Can you religious people stop making other people suffer?

Here's the thing, believe whatever you want, by why the need to mess it up for everyone else every chance you get? Obviously not all of you are like this (thank god), but the ones who are like this, also have a tremendous amount of political power. The reasonable religious, should be joining in the fight against these radicals. I'm not so sure that you are...

[Andres64]

04:48 PM on 03/12/2011

--“Seriously, is there a single area of life that religion has not fully and completely corrupted? Can you religious people stop making other people suffer?

No. It's completely corrupted. But what do you expect from something based on nothing?

[Bobrobert]

08:20 AM on 03/15/2011

Simply read your bible.

Prevent this from happening in your neighborhood.

[TheApeMan]

01:26 AM on 02/27/2011

How many people have to die for these "faith healers" to think, "hmm...maybe this isn't working?"
And if they use the usual, "god works in mysterious ways" nonsense, what is the point in praying?

[Scott Connery]

12:02 AM on 03/15/2011

According to their methodology, anything god that happens is because of god. Anything bad that happens doesn't count...somehow.

When you view the world through a lens like that a 5% recovery rate is proof that it works.

[PeterOregon]

11:18 PM on 02/26/2011

Crazy fundies seem to think they have a right to kill their children, that they are somehow chattel to be treated as they see fit.

If my religion called for starving children, or leaving them out in the cold, or dropping them from heights, then there would be no disputing that I was a monster and my children needed protection.

The current case is no different. These people are imposing their irrational beliefs on kids and killing them.

Or try this scenario. If they had horses and applied the same standard of "Let God handle the illness," the horses would be removed and they would be charged with animal cruelty. Why we would protect defenseless humans less is a real mystery.

[brokerthanu]

08:00 PM on 02/26/2011

I agree with faith healing for xtians. I think it's a form of natural selection.

[Stefan Bast]

09:17 PM on 02/26/2011

children dying=not funny. Don't try a career change as comedian.

[brokerthanu]

03:52 AM on 02/27/2011

I wasn't joking.

[DevonTexas]

06:59 PM on 02/26/2011

" It would remove spiritual treatment as a defense against all homicide charges and subject parents to mandatory sentencing under Oregon's Measure 11"

What irony! We have one state trying to make it illegal to not medically treat children and another trying to make it legal to kill adortion providers! The only consistent factor is the presence of spiritually dysfunctional "believers".

[The crimson A]

10:56 AM on 02/27/2011

Well said. "Bad people will always be bad, good people will pursue generally good things. To get good people to do bad things, it takes religion".
Racists, homophobes, misogynists. Every wrong-headed way and wrong sidedness of social issues, pro capitalists at all costs, anti labor, anti science. The common theme of people along these wicked thinking patterns are the religious.

[GaiasChild]

09:51 PM on 02/25/2011

even though i understand oregon's predicament with these people, this law won't survive a constitutional test.

[Gregor53]

08:35 AM on 02/26/2011

Although I understand the Freedom of Religion, it could be an interesting challenge.  What about the rights of a child that may not have any power to save their lives?  I would suggest that if an individual would allow someone under they protection to die from something that was medically treatable, then perhaps charges would be warranted.  What would be the difference between someone not taking care of their elderly parents and allowing them to die by refusing any treatment for treatable health problems and this.  I would suggest that the courts would side with the elderly individual.  But as I said before, it will be an interesting challenge.  Although I believe in Freedom of Religion and the rights to practice that religion, if it harms or causes death to someone, then that practice should not be allowed in this society. 

[Larry Motuz]

11:50 AM on 02/26/2011

Religious freedom, while very important, is not unlimited. It cannot trump the right to life or the care and responsibility for meeting the health needs of that life when the life involved is either that of a child or a dependent. I am certain a well written law could easily pass constitutional scrutiny.

Not that there won't be opposition, of course. Some Catholic hospitals could view such a law as a first domino limiting their religious decision making. You are intelligent so you know what I am talking about.

[GaiasChild]

01:32 PM on 02/26/2011

even though i do not think the law can pass constitutional test in court, that does not mean that it isn't needed or that i think it should not be enforceable. i think this kind of religious extremism is overlooking that their very own God has blessed the medical community with knowledge that can help their children. so they are making life very difficult for themselves in an irrational way. so i think they are blighted and wrong and i would support this effort by oregon but i am pretty sure the justices would throw it out. maybe not.

[TangerineTwilight]

07:49 PM on 02/25/2011

When it comes to getting well , you leave no stone unturned. That means doing everything that will help. Go to doctors, healers , all of it until you're better period.

[trythisonyourpiano]

12:55 AM on 02/26/2011

They're not outlawing faith healing, just punishing people who use only faith healing as their child obviously continues to decrease in health.

[TangerineTwilight]

07:44 PM on 02/25/2011

Faith healing works but you should always do everything to get well and going to doctors is part of it.

[superjules]

10:33 AM on 02/26/2011

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on that point.

[GaiasChild]

01:34 PM on 02/26/2011

Though I do not like high tech medicine and avoid doctors as much as possible, I did take my children for care when they needed it. Now they are grown and can decide for themselves. In that way, these religious extremists are forcing their own view on children who have not reached the age to decide for themselves. Who wants their child to die for God's sake?

[monstermash9]

06:10 PM on 03/12/2011

Faith healing does not work. Nor does homeopathy or any other pseudoscience garbage that con artists make millions off of.

[BobVADemHawk]

05:41 PM on 02/25/2011

The First Amendment, while protecting a person's right to their own religious beliefs, does not encompass anyone other than themselves. In other words, my interpretation of the First Amendment says you can subject yourself to just the will of God for medical treatment but you cannot and should not subject someone to your beliefs even if its your own child. That should pass muster with the SCOTUS and I applaud the OR legislature for taking this issue on. Well done, OR!

[JadedNY]

02:51 PM on 02/25/2011

Now this is a bill I agree with. How do they even think that taking a medicine is anti-god? They should view the medicines as something god allowed to be produced. I mean, come on. God didn't put clothes on our back. We physically grow the cotton, and put it through an artificial manufacturing process to create threads, which we weave into clothing. And we use that clothing to allow us to live in cold temperatures, warming ourselves with artificial heat. Why do they limit themselves to medicine? If they truly want to live the way they were born, they should be sans clothing, living in the topics. And, these folks should not eat anything processed either, as that is being digested into our bodies. They should eat raw vegetables. I could go on about their hypocrisy.

[Turtleposer]

02:36 PM on 02/25/2011

I would say "go for it" to the evangelicals who wish to use faith over medicine in curing their families. Maybe they'll all win Darwin Awards. I don't really care if they thin their herd, except that there are innocent children involved, even if they're not my own.

Children are born without a belief in gods. Through their parents, they have faith inflicted on them. A lot of times it's benign, but they shouldn't have to suffer neglect because their parents chose to avoid the latest evidence-backed treatments.

[Bill J4321]

12:40 PM on 02/25/2011

I completely and totally encourage all evangelicals to continue on this path.

[Gregor53]

08:38 AM on 02/26/2011

Do you mean the right to not allow treatment for treatable disease in children OR are you suggesting this would be a Darwin moment?

[GaiasChild]

01:36 PM on 02/26/2011

I think he means it reduce the population of evangelicals. Not nice and not funny but maybe that's not what he meant.