http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/21/idaho-woman-blames-parents-for-health-woes-seeks-change-in-law-protecting-faith-healers.html?intcmp=hpbt3

Mariah Walton has been battling to stay alive since birth because of a heart defect doctors say could have been fixed if her parents had simply trusted modern medicine, and now she wants her mother and father to face justice.

The 20-year-old Idaho woman can only hope for organ transplants that could save her life, even though they may do little to stem the bitterness she feels toward her parents over their hardcore fundamentalist beliefs. Walton's older sister, Emily, said their parents are Mormon, but practice beliefs out of step with the mainstream church, relying solely on prayer and rejecting medical care. Mariah Walton blames those beliefs for the fact her congenital heart defect went untreated in childhood.

She's in pain or feeling ill about one-third of the time, Emily Walton, who lives with her sister in Boise, told FoxNews.com. She's on some powerful medicines that are keeping her going, but once they stop working she'll need a lung transplant and maybe a heart transplant.

The case raises questions about religious freedom and medicine, a debate that played out within the Walton family two years ago when Mariah  who had neither a birth certificate nor Social Security number  threatened her father into taking her to a doctor for the first time. She learned that she was born with a hole in her heart and was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension and irreversible heart damage. According to medical professionals, the condition could have been corrected if treated earlier.

The revelation prompted Walton to cut off contact with her parents and call for them to be criminally prosecuted, according to The Guardian.

"Yes, I would like to see my parents prosecuted," she told the newspaper. "They deserve it -- and it might stop others."

The possibility of prosecution is remote. Under Idahos 1972 Child Protective Act, parents are immune from prosecution for any charges  including involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide  if they depend exclusively on faith healing. The law states that no child whose parent or guardian chooses for such child treatment by prayers through spiritual means alone shall be deemed for that reason alone to be neglected or lack parental care.

What Mariah and Emily Walton hope they can accomplish is to raise awareness of the issue and build momentum for changing a law they believe allows children to needlessly suffer.

nailed it...

Good

Those parents are fucked in the head.

Mormons love modern medicine, in fact one of the highest leaders in the church was a well know heart surgeon. Sounds like this is a case of crazy parents who use the guise of religion to push their crazy ideas, if i were their kid I would do the same

Normally I don't like to support "banning" things or overreaching on a parent's right to raise their child, but there is a line that's crossed when parents actively harm their kids by not even trying to get them the treatment they needed.  It's negligence at the very least.

i completely agree

That's a fucking retarded statute and anybody trying to hide behind it should suffer hideously.

As the article said, her parents don't follow mainstream Mormon beliefs.  I am Mormon.  My wife has an auto-immune disorder that was causing problems with her gall bladder, pancreas, and liver.  We didn't know what it was at first, and several doctors were unable to diagnose it, but after a lot of prayer, God helped us find a good doctor who was able to diagnose her and get her treated.  Part of that treatment included a prescription for 12 oz. of coffee a day.  Turns out, coffee is medically proven to stop and reverse the damage to the liver caused by her disease.  So my wife is better now thanks to modern medicine, and I am grateful to God for helping us get her to where she is.

In the eyes of the parents of the girl in article, someone like me clearly doesn't have enough faith.  Yet I can't help but think, how many doctors did God send their way as they were praying for their daughter's health?

ETA - Tough call to prosecute the parents.  Denying a child medical care based on religious beliefs is child abuse IMO.  I can see how this would quickly become a slippery slope however as a more progressive society defines what is "necessary" for the child.  Do they then prosecute parents for refusing to reassign gender of their child because a teacher at school reports that the child self identifies as something else?

Glad it all worked out.

I really can't argue with that either. I can't imagine having the means at my disposal to cure/heal my child, and just....not utilizing them.

Neglect. End stop.



Unfortunately, one of those cases where the right thing, is not the legal thing.

You get the parents you're dealt. Look at Aimless. With the application of a mediocre education and upbringing. he became a high-powered traffic court advocate and an internet God. Suppose his parents had elected to home school him with a herring -based curriculum instead of a "Penguins are Superior" curriculum? He'd have the same potential, but he'd be singing "Molly Malone" for quarters down by the cannery.

The point is that parents rather than the state get to exercise judgment about what will maximize the child's welfare. Sometimes the parents pull a boner and the kid dies of a preventable condition, sometimes, the state pulls a boner and the kid is raised in state care playing Bugger thy Bedmate for 15 years and then becomes a career criminal and a cancer on society. I am disinclined to trust the state.

I'm torn on this.  

Yes, I think her parents should have allowed her to receive modern medicine.  

OTOH, I don't think the government should be able to force parents to do this.  I've worked in healthcare for 20 years, and there are tons of little Hitlers who want to force all kinds of things on people for the sake of the public good.  Don't want to play along?  Well, that's neglect.  We're taking your kids and enjoy your re-education camp.  People are salivating over the idea.

We punish parents for child neglect, but if the neglect is 'faith based' its okay? fuck all of this

It's a tricksy issue for sure.

Little kids need to be protected though.

What difference does it make if the parents are deliberately cruel or if they have cruel religious beliefs?  It work out to the same result.

When the parents refuse proper medical care to children, isn't that basically the same thing as not feeding them?  or other types of neglect?

Suppose your next door neighbor was maltreating his child due to a religious conviction?  Would you just stand by and let the child die a miserable death because "those are the parents he was dealt"?


Surely there is some middle ground between an all-powerful nanny state and letting children die of neglect.

Define cruel.  I'll wager that whatever wording you come up with can be easily manipulated to force almost anything on whim.

I'm also torn on this. I'm not religious at all but the first amendment protects their religious beliefs and their right to practice those beliefs. It' a shitty situation all the way around.

People that believe in faith healing?

That's just natural selection at work culling the herd.

Looks like christian scientists will be have their right to freedom of religion taken away if this goes anywhere.

I don't know that you could force a parent to take advantage of modern medicine, but if you could prove that their choice not to use it led to a bad outcome, you could hold them accountable. I know that won't help the kid, but I think it's as far as you could go.

FPNI

We punish parents for medical neglect , but iatrogenic death is OK?

What about their minor child's right to not die because of objectively fucktarded beliefs?

They as legal adults can refuse whatever medical care they want.  Their child shouldn't suffer their irrational and destructive idiocy.  If their kid finds that kind of willful stupidity to be somehow compelling, they can do the same thing when they turn 18.

This is where "freedom of religion" starts to get into the extremely shaky territory of trying to defend objectively harmful actions and practices that have more in common with the Dark Ages than any segment of American society should accept.

She should just be grateful she was born 20 years ago and not 120 years ago. Hard to sue your parents when you don't make it past infancy.

More information on the "heart defect" is needed to help filter out the bullshit.

Please share with us precisely how "God helped us find a good doctor ....."

My daughter had a hole in her heart. Found during ultrasound, confirmed by specialist. Very common actually. Kept track of it and checked after she was born. It closed up on its own (also common). If it hadn't some medication would have fixed it ricky tick.

And herein lies the problem. Our society in general, and the left in particular, has no sense of moderation or common sense anymore. It simply will not be enough to repeal the statute in question for them. If the left can't shove it's whole agenda down everyone's throat then it will Hate(TM) as far as they are concerned.

The parents should be free to raise their child as they want.

The child, when they turn 18, should be free to sue and recover for negligence the parents decided to commit during that upbringing.

Agreed.  

<---------  Christian who prays AND pays (for medical care)

What about when the child dies because of the parents stupidity?

 

Minor children can't sue.

 

Refusing to give medical care should be grounds for negligence.  But that law the OP mentions shields them from that.  Which is bullshit.

We prayed, God answered.  To be more specific, we spent years looking for a solution.  One day we finally just asked God to help us and he did.  We met her doctor unexpectedly and things just fell into place.  It's kind of hard to describe, but I do not doubt God's hand in it.  Good doctors are a blessing.

Thank you.

This...

The problem with being rigidly "ideological" is that ideologies often are often so simplistic and dogmatic that they wipe out common sense.

Here on arfcom, the rigid ideology is that everyone should be free from government interference in their life in all circumstances.

If you box a zealot in with logic, sooner or later he'll wind up defending some completely absurd position.

This thread is a perfect example, we have people insisting that parents should be free to abuse and neglect their kids because of "freedom."

It's such an extreme and absurd position that it's a waste of time arguing it.

Anyone who needs this common sense topic explained to them wouldn't listen to the explanation anyway.

You guys should just hope you never have me on a jury.

Someone in my family was rescued from the hippy-dippy version of this; fortunately, against all odds and after a lot of treatment, she's an above-normal  functioning person of exceptional ability.   Only because of surrender-parental-rights level intervention.

Seems like the parents would be a good first place to look for an organ donor match.

Where do you draw the line?  If you take your kid to the doctor, are you bound by the advice he gives?  In the OP example, should you be legally compelled to submit your child to open heart surgery if the doctor says so?

I think she wants to see the manager.

Yep, happens all the time here whenever OMG government is mentioned.  People take these arguments to absurd extremes and defend silly dichotomies in pursuit of such. I just give up and laugh at this point.

It would depend on the circumstances.

The idea being promoted in this thread is that since the government might possibly overstep its authority, then it should have NO authority.

Which is not in keeping with common sense.

If the parents are seriously fucked up people, the community has a moral obligation to protect children.  Because they cannot protect themselves.

If the parents really really believe in the goodness of hurting children, are the children still being hurt?  Yes indeed they are.  

Some hillbilly sharia law version of religion doesn't void your moral obligation to stop child abuse.

Obviously, there are many clear cut situations where withholding medical care might kill or seriously injure a child.  What about those cases?