43 of the 50 U.S. states give some kind of civil or criminal immunity to parents who harm their children by relying on religious faith-healing rather than scientific medicine. Many also have religious exemptions from vaccination and testing for disease in newborns. In California, a teacher can even refuse to take a tuberculosis test—but only on religious grounds! And in just the last few weeks, New York has ruled that the disgusting ultra-Orthodox Jewish practice of allowing the mohel (circumcisor) to suck blood from an infant’s injured penis after circumcision is now legal. That practice can and has spread herpes to infants. Under the new ruling, there’s not even pre-testing of mohels: if an infant is found to have herpes, and the strain matches that present in the mohel, only then will he be barred for life from the practice. Again, religious belief is allowed to trump public safety. The infant boy has no choice about whether he’ll be chomped by a herpes-bearing mohel.
Even Canada—as shown by the recent cases of Makayla Sault and “J. J.”, First Nations children with leukemia who were allowed to quit chemotherapy in favor of “ethnically based” healing (Makayla has died; J. J. will follow soon)—has such exemptions.
Such is the unwarranted respect for religion in America—respect so strong that it allows a parent to take action that will surely result in the injury or death of their child, but only if that action is motivated by religion. Since religion is delusional, these kinds of laws are simply insane. Now, with the spread of measles among the unvaccinated raising this problem again, the New York Times has hosted a discussion among five people about the issue of religious exemptions for medical care: “Room for debate: Parents’ beliefs versus their children’s health”
Five people participated by writing brief essays, and four of them, thank goodness, oppose the exemptions. The exception is a Christian Science “healer.” You can read the essays for yourself, but I’ll just name the people and reprise their stands (indented quotes are from the essays).
Kristen A Feemster, “Religious freedom balanced with responsibility”: Feemster is identified as “a pediatric infectious diseases physician and health services researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.” Feemsters opposes religious exemptions that could cause harm:
In these instances [17 cases of herpes simplex in infants acquired after circumcision and mouth-sucking by ultra-Orthodox Jews], parents may be aware of the risk associated with their decisions, but when it is a matter of life or death or there is potential for severe illness, society has an obligation to stand up on behalf of children who do not yet have their own informed voice.
This does not mean that it is impossible to respect the practice of religious beliefs while preventing harm. While religious belief systems may vary significantly, most share the general principles of respect for life and caring for others, especially for those who are most vulnerable. Our Constitution protects these practices. But that same Constitution has recognized that we are all responsible for ensuring that children have an opportunity for a safe and healthy life.
Alan Rodgers, “Overextending a Constitutional protection”: Rodgers is identified as “a professor of history at Boston College, is the author of “The Child Cases: How America’s Religious Exemption Laws Harm Children.” Reviewing case law and the 1974 Federal law, passed under Gerald Ford, that required these exemptions to be enacted by the states, Rodgers concluded that the exemptions should be withdrawn. He makes no bones about it, and I agree with him 100%:
In Idaho during the past three years at least 12 children have died because their faith-healing parents, members of the Followers of Christ, withheld medical care. Autopsy records show that children died from medically treatable conditions. Of the states that allow religious exemptions, Idaho is one of six states that allow a religious exemption to manslaughter and negligent homicide.
It’s time to repeal all religious exemptions that unconstitutionally protect parents at the cost of a child’s death.
Sharon Slaton Howell, “Let us follow our beliefs in caring for children”: Howell is identified as “a Christian Science practitioner.” It was lobbying by Christian Scientists, a powerful and wealthy group, that led to the 1974 law and much other legislation allowing religious exemptions from medical care. Christian Scientists, of course, believe that disease and injury is a manifestation of bad thinking, and can be cured by prayer and “right thinking.” Many children have died because of their parents’ Christian Science beliefs, and the title of Howell’s article offends me. I’d prefer seeing “Let us follow science in caring for children”. And indeed, her words are invidious:
I feel this way because as Americans, we live in a country where freedom of one’s religious beliefs is law. And I have seen proof in a lifetime of studying and practicing the teachings of Christian Science that convince me God’s healing power is superior to that of medical practices in maintaining and recovering one’s health.
Howell then gives two unconvincing examples (and says she could cite hundreds more) of the power of Christian Science healing:
My mother, who was a Methodist, turned to Christian Science when kind doctors, after years of trying, failed to restore her health. One day a neighbor spoke to her of Christian Science. Mother began investigating. She was only part way through pondering Mary Baker Eddy’s book, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” when she was healed — dramatically, completely and permanently. She enrolled my brother and me in the Sunday school and never looked back.
Then one day when I was about 6 years old, I was playing in the backyard and happened to slide down a swing set onto an unsealed tin can. The cut went almost through my foot. My father, though not a Christian Scientist, let mother call a practitioner to pray for me. No medicine was used at all, my foot was cleaned and wrapped up. I can say that I actually felt God’s presence and had no fear at all. As hard as it may be to believe, I could put weight on my foot the very next day, and was back at school in three days, walking and playing as before.
Is it any wonder I feel as I do about Christian Science, and having the continued freedom to rely on it for healing?
Of course she doesn’t mention the hundreds of examples of Christian Science healing not working, many of them involving horrible and gruesome deaths of children (I discuss these in Faith versus Fact). The Church does not document any of these; they are revealed by the press or by disaffected parents like Rita Swan (see below). Howell should talk to Swan, a former Christian scientist who lost her son when she and her husband used prayer and not medicine to treat his meningitis.
Richard W. Garnett, “Parents’ beliefs should be honored, within reason”: Garnett is identified as “a professor of law and political science at the University of Notre Dame.” Garnett genuflects towards religious rights, but compares medical exemptions to beard exemptions for imprisoned Muslims. There’s a bit of waffling here, but in the end I think that all religious exemptions for medical care “compromise the public interest” and “create serious risks of physical harm.” Those include vaccination, tuberculosis- and disease-testing in newborns, and all the laws that exempt parents from prosecution if they harm their children by using prayer instead of real treatment. But this is a mush-mouthed way to say it:
The Supreme Court’s recent 9-0 decision in Holt v. Hobbs provides a good example of a common-sense accommodation. The justices concluded that prison officials in Arkansas needed to exempt a Muslim prisoner from a strict grooming regulation of beards. This exemption respects prisoners’ religious liberty and the prison-management realities alike.
Not all cases are so easy. Some of the most difficult religious-exemption controversies involve public-health interests and the physical well-being of children. These include cases involving parents who rely on prayer rather than necessary medical treatments for their kids, faith-based objections to vaccinations, and certain religious rituals.
It is tempting, but misguided, to search for a neat one-size-fits-all approach to such controversies. Instead, we should treat each case as the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act invites us to do, and ask whether it is really necessary to deny particular exemptions to sincere religious objectors in order to protect an important public interest.
Governments have a compelling interest in protecting children from serious physical harms and in safeguarding the community from dangerous diseases. When parents object to established, effective medical treatments that are necessary to prevent physical harm to a child, even sincere religious objections must be overruled. If a religious exemption would not compromise the public interest or create serious risks of physical harm, it should be respected.
Rita Swan, “Child abuse under the guise of religion”: Rita Swan is a hero of mine. She’s president of Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), an organization that battles not only religious exemption laws, but laws allowing corporal punishment of children and going easy on child sexual abuse. (She and her husband founded CHILD after, as I noted above, they let their son die of meningitis because they chose Christian Science prayer over medicine. They later left the faith and became activists.) CHILD has been very effective, and you could do worse than donating to the organization. And if you want a palliative for the unfounded views of Sharon Howell, go to the CHILD “victim page”; it will break your heart. And, of course, Swan makes no bones about getting rid of religious exemptions:
Many Idaho children have suffered and died without medical care because of the Followers of Christ beliefs. Arrian Granden, 15, died in 2012 after days of nausea and vomiting so much that her esophagus ruptured. Micah Eells, 4 days old, died in 2013 of a bowel obstruction, which usually causes excruciating pain and vomiting. Pamela Eells, 16, died in 2011, of pneumonia, drowning slowly as her lungs filled with fluid. Cooper Shippy died in 2010 of untreated diabetes shortly before his second birthday.
Idaho public officials take no action about these deaths. Criminal charges are never filed. The legislature is not willing to repeal Idaho’s religious defense to manslaughter and criminal injury. The Canyon County coroner told the press she doesn’t even do autopsies when children die without medical care in faith-healing sects.
Medical neglect may not be as sensational as other religion-related abuses but it has been just as deadly. Religious exemptions discriminate against children, depriving them of protections the state extends to others. They should be repealed.
With four of the five experts arguing that exemption laws harmful to children or the public safety should be repealed, and the sole exception being someone with a personal interest in keeping those exemptions, the sentiment in this debate is clear. And yet all but two of our 50 states still allow exemptions, and exemption from vaccinations based on religion, personal beliefs, or both are allowed in all but two states: Mississippi and West Virginia. This is unconscionable. Here’s the shameful map of exemptions from the National Conference of State Legislatures:
It’s time to put away our childish things and eliminate all religious exemptions that could be harmful to children or the public safety. There is no longer a valid excuse to let the dictates of delusional religion trump the facts of science.
h/t: Greg Mayer
I have several friends who are heavily invested in A Course In Miracles and its views on “Mind Healing.” It’s a variation of 19th century New Though which is similar to Christian Science. The “healers” of both traditions interact with each other — to an extent. Illness is an illusion which can be conquered by the power of one’s own thoughts.
Be aware though that they apparently routinely deny that what they’re “faith healers.” See, faith healers try to heal the body with the mind — but there IS no body. There’s only Love. The physical world is completely created by our minds. In fact, even the belief that there are many minds instead of one and God is separate from us is ALSO an illusion. Everything is Perfect, and whole, and Love. Faith is the belief that this is NOT true.
So they have nothing to do with the so-called “body,” they only approach the patient’s mental state. Don’t you dare call them “faith healers” or they will smile politely and lovingly forgive you for what looked like an error, but was perfection because as a Son of God you actually agree with them. Or something like that.
I once asked about situations where children die because parents choose to pray instead of taking advantage of scientific modern medical cures and was eventually informed (ie ‘reminded’) that there was no common ground for them to explain why this was okay because I still believed in “death.”
No right; no wrong; no true; no false. Only Love and Forgiveness. We are all Perfect. Uh huh. Behold one of the faces of Evil.
Evil is the right word for it. It’d actually be quite scary trying to argue with people like this.
They are good people enmeshed in a toxic belief system. They shy away from discussing their views because according to ACIM it is unloving and judgmental to try to prove yourself right and somebody else wrong.
ACIM is a religion (excuse me, it’s not a ‘religion,’ it’s a ‘spiritual view’) which both binds people into an impossible situation and prevents their ability to reason themselves out of it. It does this largely because of its huge surface appeal to Love, Peace, and Tolerance — and the fact that yes, if you commit yourself to following these virtues then maybe 9 times out of 10 it will on a practical level help you be and feel more peaceful and happy in yourself and relationships. But the system is seriously screwed and sooner or later will seriously screw with its adherents.
I find it quite a scary idea, because I can see the appeal it would have for many, and how something seemingly so benign would actually trap you in a vice-like grip.
A vice like grip that makes you go against all your instincts. It’s tantamount to pushing your kids off a tall building.
Doesn’t the bible somewhere say the greatest thingamabob is ‘love’. It seems to me this is a good refutation of that proposition. But, you can see the appeal for many who themselves wish to be loved.
“Room for Debate”?
No, no there isn’t.
How strange that West Virginia and Mississippi are the only states disallowing religious exemptions. There must be an explanation for that.
They are either more progressive than all other states, or not yet familiar with the concept of medical care.
😀
My guess is that it’s a matter of practicality: in states where voluntary vaccination leads to a 1% or 0.1% noncompliance rate, you can allow exceptions based on religion and still keep the population healthy. In a state where the noncompliance rate would be 10% or 20% if they allowed the exception, the state government cannot allow the exception without risking massive epidemics, so they get rid of the exception.
So, if I had to guess, I’d say that what you’re seeing with that map is 48 states who have not had any historical problems with people resisting vaccinations on a large scale (yet), and 2 states that probably *did* have some sort of historical problem with it. I bet, for instance, if you looked up data for polio or whooping cough or other diseases endemic in early 20th century US, you might find those two states had a lot of it, and a lot of people who didn’t want to get vaccinated.
Not really. When the mandatory vaccination law was passed in Mississippi in 1979, it contained a religious exemption. The Mississippi Supreme Court struck down that exemption holding that religious exemptions to mandatory vaccination violate equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment because the exemptions “require the great body of school children to be vaccinated and at the same time expose them to the hazard of associating in school with children exempted under the religious exemption who had not been immunized as required by the statute.”
With no religious exemption, Mississippi kindergarten students report virtually a 100% vaccination rate, (medical exemptions are allowed). The Mississippi legislature recently turned back a determined effort to insert a religious exemption into the law.
Well, kudos to Mississippi!
When I see someone who says that parents should be able to raise their children however they choose, or even as Rand Paul recently said, that children are the property of their parents (yes, he really said that), I like to check into that person’s stance on abortion, and particularly whether they support the “personhood begins at conception” argument. Because I see a clear logical conflict between believing that children (or even fetuses and zygotes) are “persons” and thus eligible to be granted rights by society, and the claim that they are under the exclusive control of their parents.
I think it ‘s children are the property of the parents just as parents are the property of God. So they’re not going to see a conflict between being against abortion and asking God to take over the health care of His children of His children.
Besides, a lot of this is tribal. This is OUR way of doing medicine. Neither government nor science has a right to come between our tribe and its special spiritual insights. A religion doesn’t deserve to be judged right or wrong by outsiders who think it’s wrong.
This is a point that I had made once as well. The same people fighting for the right to harm their children by willful neglect will fight tooth an nail to save the ‘life’ of an embryo.
Right. No one “owns” anyone else. Adults make (or at least have the illusion of making) decisions on their children’s behalf because minors have not developed the maturity, experience or resulting sense of consequence to make informed decisions – which is also why we have statutory rape laws of course. When parents lack those necessary traits, including when they are under the spell of irrational beliefs, and lack the social/family support to be led to better decisions, who else can stand for the children but the state? Of all the liberties we give over in exchange for governance – our hard-earned money in taxes, curbing our appetites for larceny and violence, serving on juries despite wage loss – what is more important than protecting the health and safety of innocents? If the state did only ONE thing, in my opinion, it should be that.
Putting the religious concerns in the back seat or more appropriately in a locked trunk is the only thing to be done.
Almost everything in existence must be updated to the times we live in and religion should not get a pass. The 1st Amendment, which the religious hide behind for these exemptions was written about 1789 when medicine was primitive and so was it’s practice.
I would add a witty comment, but I just had a bloodletting and my brain is a bit hazy at the moment.
These laws make me really angry. They are not about the children, they are about the parents. They protect the belief systems of parents. They make me sick.
Although the US has signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, they are the only country in the world apart from South Sudan that hasn’t ratified it, and South Sudan is brand new and has legislation going through the process to ratify it.
The children have no choice and are in no position to even make an informed choice about either their religion or lack of it, or their healthcare.
CHILD sounds like a great organization, and I respect those who have stood up for children in this piece.
Things like beards in prison are irrelevant. Adults have a choice about religion. Children do not have a choice and they need to be protected from religious parents until they are old enough to make their own choice.
Of course, by then many will have been brainwashed for life and they don’t really have a choice then either.
Wait. You are seriously arguing that because religious privileges are a bad thing, we should join Saudi Arabia and Iran in ratifying a treaty that addresses religious privileges?
Are you also going to argue, after we just had a child die in Canada because of this stuff, that ratifying this treaty helped in Canada?
@ Delphin
Which part of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child do you object to?
In Canada, the courts are normally very good at intervening when a child is in trouble because of religion. The First Nations situation is slightly different because of the complicating factor of another treaty. The Makayla and JJ situations are not typical.
And how about comparing the US with other Western countries. For several, including mine (NZ), even smacking your kids is illegal (although we are far from perfect, and I wouldn’t claim we are). The UN Charter is a great standard to try to live up to, and I recommend reading it: (PDF) https://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/What-we-do/Convention-on-the-Rights-of-the-Child/childfriendlycrc.aspx
The Orthodox Jewish practice of rabbis sucking the blood from a circumcised penis blows my mind.
All I can say is ‘are you [expletive] kidding me?!’
Either the rabbis are pedophiles or they are penile vampires and drinking infant blood prolongs their life. What in Jehovah’s name is the justification for this? I’m not Jewish so please, somebody weigh in here.
How anyone could defend this practice is beyond me and in NYC! Worse still is that rabbis have infected, even killed children. Where are the lawsuits from the parents? Where are the police? Where is secular justice?
I am reminded of a line, although I can’t remember the movie, where the judge said to the lawyer: Son this is not a court of justice, it’s a court of law.
When the infections started a few years ago, they simply introduced a consent form for the parents to sign. Because of religious belief, parents went ahead with the ceremony KNOWING their child might contract herpes.
Abraham pissed God off, and God wanted to kill him, but was satisfied with a bit of his son’s penis instead, and thus we have a new covenant that is one of the most important parts of Judaism.
If the mouth is clean and undiseased, sucking the blood was probably a good idea in the old days. Nowadays, I think antiseptic would be fine!
As a Jew, I have a special interest in this bit.
There are good arguments, inside the Jewish law itself, against mouth sucking. But what really angers me there is no way to justify the current situation even by the Jewish law itself.
First, those who insist that sucking is a necessary part of circumcisions ritual (which are indeed the majority), are disputed over the question whether a direct contact is necessary (most think it’s not). Either way, there is literally nothing in the Jewish law which stops mohalim from being medically tested to guarantee that they are not infected.
So if there is a law that relieve those involved (untested mohalim and parents who don’t demand any document proving that the mohel is infection-free), this has nothing to do with protection of the freedom of worship, but pure lunacy.
There is no debate. The parents should be held liable. Faith healing needs to be outlawed.
“Faith healing needs to be outlawed.”
Absurd. Anyone who prays for a cure should be charged? Any believer who goes catches a fever and doesn’t go to the doctor right away, having faith in his immune system, should be charged?
I didn’t say that. The topic here is parents refusing to get their kids treated by properly licensed medical doctors. Faith healers who practice medicine should be outlawed.
It is the 1st Amendment which protects religious freedoms. But it also protects other freedoms, arguably to an exactly equal extent.
It would be an interesting strategy to illustrate the absurdity of religious exemption of medical treatment by arguing that, like religious freedom, freedom of speech (or the press, or assembly, or redress of government action) must be as broadly and equally interpreted as freedom of religious expression.
In other words, to argue that these freedoms must also be protected even when they result in the death of children or loss of property.
This would put an end to all libel or defamation law. It might disallow compensation for property damage secondary to rioting on any political issue. It would allow child pornography, snuff films.
It would decriminalize the publication of government secrets, eg, Edward Snowden in any newspaper. Triple X porn would have to be allowed everywhere, because there would no longer be a valid argument that it should be censored because it harms anyone.
People just might be able to put into perspective how religious freedoms have been overproteced.
The liberal ‘war on religion’ continues. And if we win humanity will be the better for it.
Her title reminds me ironically of the Charles Napier quote about tradition.
Sure Ms. Howell, we will let you follow your beliefs. Then afterwards, we will follow our beliefs and lock you up for what you’ve done.
I believe parents should be held accountable for the damage from faith “healing” – but the U.S. criminal justice an penal system is not suitable to reform people who could not have chosen otherwise. To imprison parents for doing what they think is right – even though it is very very wrong – would be just to imprison yet another group of people who were themselves victims of their environments.
Ironically, therapy to cure a person of backward religiosity would likely have the effect of giving the parents consiousness of what they did. Living with that knowledge, I imagine, would be a far worse punishment than a few years in minimum security prison.
Abuse is abuse, no matter what candy coating you put on it. If we were talking about people abusing animals, many would be up in arms. Why is it that these people, who profess to love their children, are permitted to do their children what an animal abuser would be ‘hung’ for?
I have a nine year old daughter, I can’t imagine being that delusional to consider not taking her to a physician when one is necessary. I am a recovering creationist, I was brought up on this garbage, and even then I can’t imagine me forgoing medical aid.
I just cannot wrap my head around this idiotic behaviour.
What I don’t understand is why the parents of vaccinated children aren’t demanding a classroom where only vaccinated children are allowed. The school system can certainly provide separate classrooms for non-vaccinated children. Well, sure, it would be foolishly expensive, and the voters might want to take that into consideration when voting to allow for exemptions or not; but I don’t see where the non-vaccinated kids have a right to endanger others, even if they have a right to a public education. It’s one thing to allow religious practices; it’s another thing to allow practices which endanger people, even for religious purposes. Seems there’s room for a law suit there. Religious convictions don’t give one the right to endanger those who don’t believe in your religion. Sue the parents for reckless endangerment.
Think carefully about that and I’m sure the answer will come to you. 🙂
(The unvaccinated are not a significant risk to a vaccinated child; only to other unvaccinated children.)
“(The unvaccinated are not a significant risk to a vaccinated child; only to other unvaccinated children.)”
??? I suppose one could argue about the term “significant”, but they are definitely and needlessly increasing the risk to the vaccinated.
Not to mention children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.
Germany court orders measles sceptic to pay 100,000 euros
A German biologist who offered €100,000 (£71,350; $106,300) to anyone who could prove that measles is a virus has been ordered by a court to pay up…
Why just medical exemptions? Religions cover a lot besides medicine. If you allow a religious exemption for medical care for a child then, to be fair and consistent, you should allow one for any other religiously mandated way of treating children. That means allowing sex at age 9 for observant Muslims, or killing children who talk back for observant Jews.
“..It’s time to repeal all religious exemptions that unconstitutionally protect parents at the cost of a child’s death.”
Not quite. It’s time to repeal all religious exemptions.
But surely, since there is no free will these parents could not have acted otherwise.
Child abuse is child abuse, whether it’s done by someone who is just a stupid bully or someone who is just a stupid member of a religion. The punishment should be the same.
+1
… and religion deserves no special rights under the Constitution. To provide such special rights is to deny that all men/women are created equal under the eyes of the law.
Meanwhile… http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/a_terrifying_precedent_woman_to_be_tried_for_murder_for_giving_birth_to_stillborn/
Reblogged this on acmeapex.