What is it about a belief in nonsense that makes people so willing to place their children’s medical care in the hands of a dead Judean carpenter than in a modern day medical doctor? Because if our first story is any indication, Dr. Jesus H. Christ has a pretty terrible reputation for pediatrics.
I’ve always wondered what it is about those whose Christian faith is so fervent and immune to the blessings of modernity (like modern medicine, f’rinstance) that they’d endanger the health (in some cases, even the lives) of their children. Believing in the power of prayer is one thing; believing that prayer is more powerful even than modern medical science seems the definition of irresponsible parenting. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’d deny your child basic, readily-available medical care in favor of prayer, you’re not a parent. You’re a child abuser who should be stripped of their parental rights.
Faith can be a wonderful thing, but like anything else in life, it can be a bad thing when improperly applied. In the case of a desperately ill child, faith alone- no matter how strong- cannot and will not take the place of timely medical care. The role of a parent includes protecting and looking out for the wellbeing of children. Denying a child medical attention qualifies as neither.
Here in Oregon, this is no small thing. Over the years, a Fundamentalist sect near Oregon City has eschewed medical treatment for their sick children, preferring instead to rely on prayer. As a result, several children, many of whom would still be alive if treatment had been sought early enough, died from what can only be accurately described as parental neglect and abuse. The short version is that these children were murdered by their parents, who cared more for the purity of their faith than the safety and well-being of their children. Until very recently, prosecuting parents in Oregon who refused medical treatment for their children was exceedingly difficult- “sincerely held religious convictions,” don’tchakonw?
Then there’s Idaho, which is one of the few remaining uber-Jesus-y enclaves which allow you to kill a child as long as you’re praying REALLY hard about it. Of course, Idaho is a bit “different” by most any yardstick. The state legislature has tried to bring back “legitimate rape” and legitimize the teaching of science directly from the King James Bible. They’ve also worked to ensure that Idaho’s public school teachers and administrators are properly armed (Perhaps in anticipation of the Zombie Apocalypse?). It’s a place where rationality and reason in government seem in short supply. The elevation of religion over the health and safety of children is merely the worst example of official irresponsibility.
Idaho’s the sort of godly place in which a parent can completely neglect the health and well-being of a child without recourse…as long as they claim it was done out of “sincerely held religious conviction.” Unfortunately, that’s cold comfort to 20-year-old Mariah Walton:
Mariah is 20 but she’s frail and permanently disabled. She has pulmonary hypertension and when she’s not bedridden, she has to carry an oxygen tank that allows her to breathe. At times, she has had screws in her bones to anchor her breathing device. She may soon have no option for a cure except a heart and lung transplant - an extremely risky procedure.
All this could have been prevented in her infancy by closing a small congenital hole in her heart. It could even have been successfully treated in later years, before irreversible damage was done. But Mariah’s parents were fundamentalist Mormons who went off the grid in northern Idaho in the 1990s and refused to take their children to doctors, believing that illnesses could be healed through faith and the power of prayer.
Mariah’s parents are members of a radical Christian sect known as “Followers of Christ (FOC),” a group known for their virulent distrust of medical science and their reliance on the power of prayer. The trail of dead children FOC has left in their wake is testament to the unconscionable child abuse and neglect sanctioned by Idaho law and rabidly supported by at least one radical Republican state legislator.
FOC adherents literally believe that prayer can cure any medical crisis. Not surprisingly, this lunacy is explained away by asserting that anyone not healed by prayer simply possessed faith insufficient to the task. Thus is the victim blamed for the crime perpetrated upon them by their parents: “They weren’t healed because they didn’t believe.”
Another child who survived being raised by FOC parents was Brian Hoyt:
In just one incident, when he was 12, Hoyt broke his ankle during a wrestling tryout. “I ended up shattering two bones in my foot,” he said. His parents approached the situation with the usual Followers remedies - rubbing the injury with “rancid olive oil” and having him swig on Kosher wine.
Intermittently, they would have him attempt to walk. Each time, “my body would just go into shock and I would pass out.”
“I would wake up to my step-dad, my uncles and the other elders of the church kicking me and beating me, calling me a fag, because I didn’t have enough faith to let God come in and heal me, while my mom and my aunts were sitting there watching. And that’s called faith healing.”
And it gets even worse:
He had so much time off with the untreated fracture that his school demanded a medical certificate to cover the absence. Forced to take him to a doctor, his mother spent most of the consultation accusing the doctor of being a pedophile.
He was given a cast and medication but immediately upon returning home, the medication was flushed down the toilet, leaving him with no pain relief. His second walking cast was cut off by male relatives at home with a circular saw.
If the experiences of Hoyt and Walton seem to be the products of some very odd ways of displaying Christian love, it’s because absolute fealty to FOC doctrine is elevated above the health and safety of children. Both Walton and Hoyt- along with numerous other children- suffered from what can only fairly be described be described as egregious abuse and neglect- behavior that, because it can be justified by “sincerely held religious conviction” is legal in Idaho.
How bad are things for children trapped in what any reasonable person would have to believe is a cult? According to the Idaho Governor’s Task Force on At-Risk Children, children of FOC members have a 31% mortality rate…10 times the rate for the entire state.
Idaho and Oregon aren’t the only states in which children are denied necessary medical care by parents who embrace what they believe to be the power of prayer while eschewing medical science. It’s a nationwide phenomena we can thank Richard Nixon for. While writing the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, the Nixon Administration caved to lobbyists who wanted to insert language into the bill allowing for parents to deny their children medical treatment on religious grounds.
‘No parent or guardian who in good faith is providing a child treatment solely by spiritual means—such as prayer—according to the tenets and practices of a recognized church through a duly accredited practitioner shall for that reason alone be considered to have neglected the child.’
Under the new guidelines, states were required to follow this exemption or risk losing federal funding for their child abuse prevention programs. Yes, that’s every bit as messed up as it sounds: In order to receive federal funding for child abuse prevention programs, states were required to turn a blind eye to child abuse “justified” by religious fervor.
Before long, 49 states had passed their own child abuse prevention laws with religious exemptions. Yep, here in America, a parent could pretty much treat (or mistreat) a child in whatever manner they deemed appropriate, as long as they claimed it was within the practices of a recognized church.
How sad is it when someone can look back at their childhood thusly:
“Yes, I would like to see my parents prosecuted,” [Mariah said].
Why?
“They deserve it.” She pauses. “And it might stop others.”
Parents like Collett and David Stephan should be tried as child abusers…because that’s exactly what they are. The Stephans are a couple from Alberta
who tried to treat the meningitis of their toddler, Ezekiel, with echinacea, onions, and maple syrup rather than taking him to a gosh durn doctor. Eventually Ezekiel’s spine and brain were so swollen from encephalitis that his parents had to lay him down flat in their car because he couldn’t sit in his car seat.
While we had originally reported that Ezekiel was first laid down flat in the car as the parents rushed him to meet EMS crew, we now find out it’s even worse: Ezekiel couldn’t sit in his car seat long before the fateful trip to the hospital. In fact, David Stephen testified that they had first laid Ezekiel down in the car before his hospital visit so that his parents could run errands. That means this poor child was suffering critical encephalitis for hours, possibly DAYS before his parents did a single thing to help him. David went on to accuse the police of denying him access to his child in his last days, which sounds like pretty sound cop work, honestly, when you have two parents under investigation for negligence….
You know what my main concern was at that point? It was the idea that they might think we were negligent parents if they found out that we didn’t put Ezekiel in a car seat.
No, you were negligent because you determined it was medically appropriate to treat your child’s meningitis with “echinacea, onions, and maple syrup.” Even more disgusting is that David Stephan’s primary concern wasn’t with his son’s obvious suffering, but with worrying about whether the police would think him a bad parent for not putting their son in a car seat.
I simply don’t possess a vocabulary adequate to the task of accurately describing how much I’d like to see the Stephans suffer every bit as much as their son. Had they sought medical attention quickly for their son, there’s every chance that he might have survived. At the very least, he would have been spared the pain and agony his parents subjected him to.
“Yo…Baron Munchausen’s holding for you on line two….”
If you as an adult determine that it’s perfectly appropriate for you to eschew medical treatment in favor of prayer, rancid olive oil, pureed squirrel semen, and/or maple syrup, that’s you’re choice to make. It’s a stupid, ill-advised, and indefensible choice to be certain, but as an adult you’re free to #@$% up your life and health as you see fit. You have a choice; your children don’t. When you willfully deccline to seek medical treatment for a sick child because of “sincerely held religious convictions,” you’re not proving your religious devotion. You’re proving that you’re an utter failure as a parent.
If you believe that prayer has a far greater ability to cure than modern medicine, if you believe that failure to be cured should be attributed to your insufficient faith, what you have isn’t religion; it’s a predilection for child abuse. You have no business having or being allowed anywhere near children. There should be a reserved parking space waiting for you in Hell…along with those Republicans so determined to protect “religious freedom” that they’d fail to protect children.
