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    Parental rights

    This is a (unfortunately) fairly common occurrence - parents watch as their child dies, trusting to prayer rather than a medical doctor.

    The parents in this case were found guilty of second degree murder:

    Parents who prayed for sick daughter

    Here's a summary of the legal issues involved:

    The couple's attorneys argued that Wisconsin law protects people from being charged with child abuse if they provide spiritual treatment for a child in lieu of medical assistance. They contended the law protects parents from criminal liability through the point of creating a substantial risk of death, making it difficult to know when a situation has become so serious that parents who stay with prayer healing become criminally liable. State attorneys countered that parents are immune from child abuse charges but not homicide counts, arguing that once they realize a child could die, their immunity ends.

    More than a dozen states have some form of legal protection for parents who choose prayer healing for their children over conventional medical attention. But they've been wrestling for years with how far those protections go.
    So - the debate question is this-

    In you opinion, should parents have a legal right, and immunity from prosecution, for refusing life-saving medical treatments for their children?
    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.


    #2
    Re: Parental rights

    No its bollocks and its stupidity im sorry but it is, medical treatment is there for a reason, im spiritual i prefer herbal remedies than going to a doctors but when its clear herbal and magickal remedies arnt working i drag my arse to the doc's its simple as thatm and if this was britian they'd be charged with Severe neglect

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      #3
      Re: Parental rights

      No, they should have absolutely no protection.

      Surely they could have prayed for the child alongside proper medical treatment?
      Yikes, all that cultural appropriation that used to be here tho

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Parental rights

        Absolutely not. The rights of parents stop when they significantly endanger or hinder their children. For example, in many countries parents don't have the right to keep their kids out of education before a certain age. They can homeschool them, but they have to school them -somehow-. In most countries, health care is the same. Such a thing would get your kids taken away from you (I think in most States as well). Some things like vaccines are a grey area, but they still have ways to push it because it's not only important to your kid, it's important to other kids (especially those who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons). I read that in Ontario, they started sending kids home from school for not getting vaccinated (unless it was one of the said medical reasons). Since you have to send your kids to school at some point or homeschool them, this pretty much makes you do it.

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          #5
          Re: Parental rights

          No. Absolutely not.

          I believe the treatments themselves are often the answer to prayer anyways... But seriously, just no. You don't have the right to let your child die just because you believe they'll be okay.

          I have a friend whose parents let this happen. She still has huge problems with religion because of it, and you know, that's effing understandable.

          I'd keep writing, but everyone else has said my points so I'll cut myself off there.
          hey look, I have a book! And look I have a second one too!

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            #6
            Re: Parental rights

            Originally posted by DanieMarie View Post
            ?.. Such a thing would get your kids taken away from you (I think in most States as well)...
            Not necessarily - if you look at the legal summery, you'll see that many states have laws protecting a parent's choice in whether to use real medicine, or faith based medicine.

            - - - Updated - - -

            Originally posted by Quetzal View Post
            Surely they could have prayed for the child alongside proper medical treatment?
            Well, according to their belief system, this would "take glory away from God."
            Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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              #7
              Re: Parental rights

              Those are rediculous protections.

              No parent, in any way, should be allowed to let their child die just because of prayer. That, in my opinion, is a form of Abuse. They're neglecting their child's needs, for the sake of their faith.
              Kemetic Blog - http://www.inspiringrainbow.wordpress.com

              Bring your grains of Salt.

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                #8
                Re: Parental rights

                Religious freedom is very important, and if a person doesn't want chemotherapy to treat their cancer, no one should force them.

                However, it's very different to force that on your children. You can raise them with belief in faith healing if you want. But your child is not mature enough to make his or her own medical decisions, and until they are, if you can't manage to make the correct choices that will KEEP YOUR CHILDREN ALIVE, then the law should make those choices for you.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Parental rights

                  Originally posted by Raphaeline View Post
                  Religious freedom is very important, and if a person doesn't want chemotherapy to treat their cancer, no one should force them.

                  However, it's very different to force that on your children. You can raise them with belief in faith healing if you want. But your child is not mature enough to make his or her own medical decisions, and until they are, if you can't manage to make the correct choices that will KEEP YOUR CHILDREN ALIVE, then the law should make those choices for you.
                  ^ Yes. Completely agree with her. Just saying.
                  Kemetic Blog - http://www.inspiringrainbow.wordpress.com

                  Bring your grains of Salt.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Parental rights

                    I'm on the fence about it. I think the parents should have freedom to deal with their minor as they wish, but I can think of several instances where that phrase would make me a hypocrite.


                    Mostly art.

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                      #11
                      Re: Parental rights

                      Parents make a lot of important decisions regarding their children, but (IMHO) whether they live or died should not be one of them...

                      The religious angle is a red herring, and irrelevant - again, IMHO.
                      Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Parental rights

                        Parents are provided substantial control over a minor's affairs. They are required to use this control for the minor's benefit in certain areas. I have no objection to the legal system making explicit requirements in how parents handle medical care for their children. I am not necessarily enthused about applying a murder 2 charge in the absence of specific legal requirements regarding medical care but I don't know enough about the law in that jurisdiction to make a judgement there.
                        life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                        Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                        "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                        John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                        "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                        Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Parental rights

                          Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                          Parents make a lot of important decisions regarding their children, but (IMHO) whether they live or died should not be one of them...

                          The religious angle is a red herring, and irrelevant - again, IMHO.

                          I have a problem, here, as to where the line is drawn. Religious tradition, mandating faith in *God* over human precepts, abilities and meddling, would also be used to explain why the praying for health didn't work. (As in, "God's will be done," or something similar.) Secular tradition, relying on research/studies, trial and error, experience, is not always exact. (As in, "we did everything we could... I'm sorry Mrs. J, your child didn't make it.") Both traditions have a long history; both, contemporaneously, have legal ramifications; Both are supported by a modicum of legal protection. Yet, in so many instances, they are found to be mutually exclusive. With Justice trying to walk a balance beam, between them, in a high wind.

                          If the religious parents (ipso facto, God) can be held liable, so then would the medical practitioner that wasn't successful and, indeed, lost the life of a minor, in their care.

                          To that end, I don't see where religion, then, would be a red herring but, more, a simple contradiction to the "guesswork in a white coat" that medicine amounts to. That being the case, religious freedom IS pertinent, at the very least, up to a point. Medicine is pertinent but, also, only at a certain point.

                          That produces a "gray area" that I do not like. Where, in effect, what you believe is completely irrelevant and meaningless, in favor of some other person's beliefs. THAT is a slippery slope of religious oppression, at some point, isn't it?




                          "Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it." - Ayn Rand

                          "Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." - Marcus Aurelius

                          "The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice." - Mark Twain

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                            #14
                            Re: Parental rights

                            Hell-the-fuck-no....a parents religious rights do not extend to their child's health and welfare.

                            Or, this:

                            Originally posted by Raphaeline View Post
                            Religious freedom is very important, and if a person doesn't want chemotherapy to treat their cancer, no one should force them.

                            However, it's very different to force that on your children. You can raise them with belief in faith healing if you want. But your child is not mature enough to make his or her own medical decisions, and until they are, if you can't manage to make the correct choices that will KEEP YOUR CHILDREN ALIVE, then the law should make those choices for you.
                            Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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                              #15
                              Re: Parental rights

                              Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                              Hell-the-fuck-no....a parents religious rights do not extend to their child's health and welfare.
                              My husband said this. I said lets punch people who think that its OK to let their kid die if it is the will of god.... but I suppose forcing them through the justice system is fair enough. I guess that puts the burden of where the line is on prosecutors. I feel like if parents believed that their child was going to die, but let it happen, that's where the problem lies. If they are just legitimately ignorant of how ill their little one was, I don't think it absolves them, but it makes for a harder case in the criminal justice system.
                              http://catcrowsnow.blogspot.com/

                              But they were doughnuts of darkness. Evil damned doughnuts, tainted by the spawn of darkness.... Which could obviously only be redeemed by passing through the fiery inferno of my digestive tract.
                              ~Jim Butcher

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