A couple named Blair and Taylor Edwards, members of the Followers of Christ church (who eschew medical care) let their ill newborn infant die while anointing him with oil and offering prayers. There have been previous, similar cases prior to this one of others in that church. Citation.
They plead guilty and received only 30 days in jail! And, they are being allowed to keep their four other children.
WTAF?! What is wrong with that court? I suspect that if it were any group other than a religious one, the sentence would have been far more appropriate and the group would have been forced to disband. Why are the religious given a pass?
If it would otherwise be considered negligence, then it should remain negligence. “Religious freedoms” should only apply inasmuch that they do not cause harm or allow harm to occur that is otherwise prohibited by law.
Being a parent carries responsibilities. If this institution and its members are known to violate the law, then membership should be under increased watch from child care services.
Sounds like the lower sentence was because it couldn’t be proved that the wilful inactions resulted in death, but I would say 30 days doesn’t sound sufficient for failing to seek emergency medical attention, nor does it demonstrate sufficiently sound reasoning to be allowed to keep their four remaining children with relatively minimal additional oversight.
I agree the institution itself needs to be put in the spotlight as they are evidently advocating for unlawful inaction and they should be held culpable for this (perhaps under joint enterprise?) - the other family members should at least be facing criminal action as they too failed to raise any emergency medical attention (presuming they weren’t as the article didn’t say otherwise).
On the other hand, I am not sure what sort of organization would successfully promote rejection of all medical standard-of-care (especially on behalf of a child) unless magic were invoked as an alternative. And religion is best at providing the magic. I suppose that eugenicists might go this route, and RFK Jr is certainly making the attempt – only the strong deserve to survive is the general idea. But then it is the religious who tend to think they deserve to survive because it is God’s will … I don’t think vaccine denialism and the like can exist without a lot of rank and file seeing that denialism as “trusting God”.
You are right though, that a merely neglectful and sociopathic parent, absent religious justification for their failure to do their job as parents, would not get off so easily. The type of person that is always drunk or partying while their children run feral, would (and should) get no deference. And so neither should the religious.
Nothing new to see here, unfortunately. Just another testament to the legal exceptionalism afforded to many a religious group, which, in many jurisdictions, grants them a special, albeit bizarre kind of immunity from the very laws that govern the rest of us. It’s the usual appeal to tradition, but this time, it’s cloaked in the pious guise of religious freedom.
I have run into similar situations while working in the medical field, and I understand your sense of horror with this situation, and I share it, as I am–after all–a registered nurse.
I can’t offer a good answer to your question, but I can provide a small amount of insight that may give you a better understanding of the question.
A big priority in any ethical medical system is supporting, reinforcing, and restoring as much patient autonomy as the patient’s medical condition allows.
Often linked side-by-side with patient autonomy is patient self-determination.
Sometimes, it is unfortunate that this self-determination is also interpreted in a way that this self-determination extends from the parents and envelops the minor children, and sometimes this kills kids. The child of a Jehovah’s Witness who dies from want of a blood transfusion is an example.
As another example, people refused to allow their children to get vaccinated for COVID because some of the vaccines were derived from fetal cells that came from elective abortions . . . and many children died from this.
It seems–at least to me–that our country is stumbling while walking a narrow line between self-determination and social safety.
I don’t have an easy answer, but I wouldn’t let these people ever be around minor children and religion doesn’t give you a pass on letting a child die just to prove an overly legalistic point from an ancient book . . . which teaches that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Even if I was deeply religious, I wouldn’t see God as a lawyer.
This is the sort of faith that flies jets into buildings. The utter surety that they are doing the right thing. As far as I am concerned, they should be treated as terrorists.