In the name of the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster what the hell are the editors of the print edition of the Oregonian thinking? The headline to this article on parents who murdered their fifteen-month-old daughter by treating her pneumonia with faith healing reads: "When Secular and Spiritual Laws Collide."Hey Big-O! This country is not Iran. Our legal system is not built around Sharia law. There is no such thing in this country as "spiritual law." None. Zippo. Nada.
You might as well headline the article "When Secular Law and Tinkerbell Collide." It would be just as grounded in reality.
The laws of the United States, of which the last time I checked Oregon was a participating state, are secular. Period.
I'm hoping those secular laws run over these parents doing about 75 mph then back up and make sure they're finished just for good measure.
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10 comments:
Is this about the intellectual laziness of your newspaper or people who don't believe in medical science?
Or is it pro-vehicular manslaughter?
I can't say that I'm pro-vehicular manslaughter.
That's hilariously awful. Great post! Thanks!
When does a child's welfare outweigh religious freedom? When does the state's responsibility to safeguard children trump parental rights?
AW, shit and whiskers! The kid was 15 MONTHS old.
Prosecute! Prosecute!
I condemn this all all crap like it. Praying would only work if there were actually gods.
I do have one comment: Prosecute? Isn't losing their daughter enough pain in their lives? They didn't murder their child because they hated her, they did what they thought was best (as opposed to, you know, medical experts). They have to live with this. It may shake the very foundations of their faith, or it may not. Either way, they now have to live with an empty hole in their lives.
Pity them.
ubermilf-
I can't say that I'm pro-vehicular manslaughter.
Way to take a stand. I suppose you're pro-puppy as well?
Lemmy-
Thanks and welcome.
okjimm-
When does a child's welfare outweigh religious freedom?
Exactly. There's no ethical difference between this and throwing your child in a volcano to please a volcano god.
Arkonbey-
The state's had a lot of problems with this particular church and faith healing so a law was passed a few years ago making parents specifically liable for medical neglect without religious exemption.
I'm sorry but I don't pity them, I pity the child who never had a chance and died horribly because her parents were ignorant yahoos.
If adults want to go Jim Henson with their health decisions more power to them. But if they're doing that with their kids then I believe it's abuse.
I've been sort of half following this story in the on-line edition, but it's too heart-breaking and depressing to follow closely. The growing trend of journalism over my adult life has been to frame every story as having two "sides," and to make the "conflict" between them the center of the story. "Integrity," "honesty," and "objectivity" have been replaced with "fair" representation in that both "sides" are assumed and portrayed as having equivalence in terms of morality and basis in reality.
As a result, we have raised generations of people who believe that reality is what they want to believe it is. It's not just the Oregonian... it's everywhere in this country.
If adults want to go Jim Henson with their health decisions more power to them. But if they're doing that with their kids then I believe it's abuse.
Amen.
@Dean: I'm not condoning what the parents did.
Yes, they were idiots living in a fantasy world, but, in their own, warped way, they did love their daughter and will miss her.
I think that jail or fines would be cruel or unusual when added to the existing punishment of a dead daughter. Will adding more misery to their lives bring the girl back? Will it prevent this happening again by making people stop believing in woo-woo over science?
What's the answer? Counseling, perhaps? Education is what's lacking. Look at those idiots whose son had cancer and they tried to cure him with herbs. He gets court-ordered to chemo and the tumor shrinks. His parents believe that it was the herbs finally working and not the chemo that did it. Would jail or a fine do anything about that? No.
With these folks who killed their daughter, maybe in time they will come to regret their decision and understand what a terrible, useless mistake they made.
However, if those folks have any other children, they should absolutely be removed from the home for their own protection; the parents proved that, loving or not, they have not the correct judgment to be parents.
Using a car for murder is all well and good, but a steamroller can do it's work on it's first pass. ;o)
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