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Is It Criminal to Withhold Medicine from a Sick Child? What if it’s for Religious Reasons?
Justice is blind, and so might be a little girl because her parents denied her medical treatment based on their religious beliefs
Have you ever believed in something so strongly because of your faith in God (or some kind of higher power) that you disagree with and go against conventional wisdom as a result?
Me? No. I appreciate my religion in general, but I love my doctors and Western science and medicine. And if my child is really sick, she will follow the course of treatment recommended by someone who knows more than me.
At the same time, I respect others’ right to choose, but I fail to see how you can let a child suffer physically because of a religious conviction. Like, how do Timothy and Rebecca Wyland sleep at night after refusing treatment on medical grounds for 18-month-old Alayna, who now may go blind as a result?
Oregon doctors said the toddler has a massive growth covering her left eye, but because her parents are members of the Followers of Christ Church, they believed that “prayer and anointing oils would heal their daughter’s hemangioma,” which is an abnormal growth of blood vessels that was occluding her vision.
Jury selection continues in Timothy and Rebecca’s trial today, as they have been charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment of their child. It comes days after the state House in Oregon passed a bill that would be tougher on faith-healing parents.
About 300 children die every year because of their parent’s religious beliefs, according to the Iowa-based Children’s Healthcare is Legal Duty group, which advocates for strong child abuse penalties against parents who seek exemption from child abuse laws.
The law in Oregon says parents have a “legal duty” to provide care for their children. The Wylands said they wouldn’t do it for their daughter unless it was court-ordered. So she was taken into state custody last summer for treatment, but it’s still unclear if vision will ever develop in the afflicted eye.
I really do respect other people’s religion, but when that religion interferes with the health of a child too young to help him or herself, I think the parents should be treated as criminals. Hopefully prayer will get the Wylands through their criminal trial, and that medicine will now heal their daughter.
Do you think parents should be forced to treat their children with actual medicine even if their religion goes against the course of treatment?
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[...] whose children die in these cases could face manslaughter or murder charges. It poses the question, is this illegal? How far do religious freedoms extend? Do they stop when the use of those freedoms threatens the [...]
Daily Link Round-Up - Baby Pictures and Baby Products for Moms and Kids - Tots and Giggles commented on May 27 11 at 5:04 pmAmanda commented on May 26 11 at 11:41 amThere is no place in the Bible that says Christians must refuse medicine. These people are dangerously misinformed.
Steelrigged commented on May 26 11 at 12:33 pmIs it ever okay to hurt someone else, anyone else, “for religious reasons”?
Maggie commented on May 26 11 at 4:12 pmWhat about those times when the doctor is wrong? Does the hospital, the doctor, or the court have the right to compel medical treatment just because some particular doctor thinks it’s best?
Didn’t anybody ever hear of malpractice?
Remember Thalidomide? Remember DES? Remember lobotomy? Doctors aren’t always right. Seems to me a parent needs to review all the recommendations, try hard to understand the evidence (if any), and make the best choice they can.
And it’s not up to the rest of us to second-guess that.
Meredith Carroll commented on May 26 11 at 4:23 pm@Maggie – I suppose if these parents were making science-based decisions it would be one thing (although that’s what second opinions from experts are for, I suppose), but if they did it for religious reasons that’s a whole other story, I think.
Maggie commented on May 26 11 at 4:27 pmMaybe the parents would be well-advised not to mention religion.
But really: Just for one example, my mom was told she “had to” take diethyl stilbestrol – DES – to prevent the miscarriage that was threatening. Nowadays we know that the children whose gestations were treated with DES have a very high rate of genital cancers in their 20s. Sometimes their younger siblings do, too.
The experts were unanimous, in that decade, that DES was the correct treatment with no bad effects. More than 20 years later, they changed their tune.
So my mom was right, after all, when she said she would just let nature take its course. But would today’s interventionists let her ‘get away’ with that?
Lisa commented on May 26 11 at 6:30 pmWhy is it okay to deny a child medicine because her parents can’t afford it?
Meredith Carroll commented on May 26 11 at 6:33 pm@Lisa — Did someone say it was?
Angela commented on May 26 11 at 9:20 pmThis is one reason I’m not the biggest fan of religion and I do think that the courts should be allowed to intervene to get a minor necessary treatment in such cases. However, I don’t think that the parents should be criminally charged if they are otherwise loving and attentive parents for following their beliefs.
Bunnytwenty commented on May 27 11 at 12:06 pmLisa makes an excellent point. We let institutions deny children (never mind adults) life-saving care every day for far stupider reasons than “god said so.” Profit is a good reason to let anyone die, it seems.
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