Woman wants to sue her parents over faith healing

[DJQuag]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/watch-sick-young-woman-wants-to-see-parents-prosecuted-for-choosing-prayer-over-medicine/

Good for her. I seriously doubt the legislation will pass, because Idaho is a red state and red states tend to believe that it's okay to hurt other people if your religion tells you to.

It seriously grinds my gears that children are constantly dying because their parents are nutjobs who prefer prayer over a doctor.

[D.W.]

If we had universal health care it would be easier to handle.  Right now, what could you do?  Have an outsider force them to take her to the doctors?  Have child protective services show up, cart her back and forth?  How did she contact them?  What if the doctors found nothing?  Who gets the bill?  The parents?  The state?

While it infuriates me as well and I would love to see parents like these loose their religious shield, I don't know as it would change much.  At best you get an occasional prosecution but it's not like other fervently religious parents will see that and second guess themselves.  They would still take their chances and maybe just ask God to put a cherry on the cake of good health for their kids and ask that they avoid the eyes of the heathen CPS agents.

[TheDeamon]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/watch-sick-young-woman-wants-to-see-parents-prosecuted-for-choosing-prayer-over-medicine/

Good for her. I seriously doubt the legislation will pass, because Idaho is a red state and red states tend to believe that it's okay to hurt other people if your religion tells you to.

It seriously grinds my gears that children are constantly dying because their parents are nutjobs who prefer prayer over a doctor.

Being from that red state, I'll have to poke around and see what I can find locally at some point. I am somewhat agreed with the legislator in this article however. They could enact all the legislation that they want on some of this, the problem is that since the parents chose their course of treatment on religious grounds, the 1st Amendment comes into play, and SCotUS could strike it down on that basis.

The other side is, as you allude to, albeit in a sneering manner, that Idaho is a fairly conservative state. 1st Amendment religious protections are a very big concern there, and the voters are very disinclined to want to be the trial balloon for further legislation that may successfully further curtail 1st Amendment protections.

That being said, in her case, its too late, her parents would be grandfathered under the old laws, as that was when the events occurred. Legislation passed after the fact can't be used to prosecute them, there is long established legal grounds for that practice. Now if she wants to bring forward a civil suit against her parents, that's another matter, and I'd be highly surprised if an Idaho jury didn't give her a reward for damages(pain and suffering) as an outcome for a civil trial.

Although I also have to admit to some mild confusion about her claim of a "congenital condition" which she says was the outcome of their parents opting for a faith based remedy during her childhood. The medical usage(not the psych) for "congenital" in physical medicine, last I checked, involve health conditions present from birth. Which implies she was born that way, so if she was born that way, how did her parents pursuing a faith based solution as a child make it happen retroactively?

Is she saying that there is an alternate reality somewhere that her parents offered up a prayer for her to suffer such an ailment and the powers that be in heaven granted their wish by creating a new reality where she had suffer from her congenital ailment? If so, it is her parents from the alternate reality who need to be prosecuted, not her parents from here.

[D.W.]

Treatment for it was denied.  If started earlier, she's suggesting it would have been managed and she wouldn't be in such bad shape right now.  She's not blaming them or lack of medical access for the condition.

[Wayward Son]

If we had universal health care it would be easier to handle.  Right now, what could you do?  Have an outsider force them to take her to the doctors?  Have child protective services show up, cart her back and forth?  How did she contact them?  What if the doctors found nothing?  Who gets the bill?  The parents?  The state?

This doesn't seem to be a problem, since the article stated that "[Her mother] is currently protected from prosecution because in Idaho, state law shields parents from legal consequences if their reasoning for not seeking treatment for a child is religious..."  So if the parents denied medical care for their child for non-religious reasons, they could be prosecuted.  And, so far, I haven't heard of many problems from that, other than custody of the child being taken from irresponsible parents.

[D.W.]

Out of curiosity, if the state took custody away, do they cover expensive medical treatment?  Get it done and pass the bill along to the parents?

It just seems like it would get to be a mess quick even if they could 'force' the parents to get their kid in for treatment.

[Fenring]

It just seems like it would get to be a mess quick even if they could 'force' the parents to get their kid in for treatment.

Yes, it seems implausible to require someone to pay a lot of money for a service. If medical care was considered an essential service and offered for free to everyone I could see the argument for a parent declining to partake of that service to be negligence. But since it's treated as an optional a la carte service that is priced as a luxury it doesn't make sense to treat it as something where you can be sanctioned for failing to invest in it. Isn't the whole argument against universal health care that self-determination is more important than welfare? If so, the self-determination in this case is about risking the child's health, and you can't punish people for making choices that turn out badly when you've just fought for them to have the choice in the first place. Freedom to choose doesn't mean freedom to only choose what other people think you should choose; you don't need 'freedom' for that.

[Wayward Son]

If medical care was considered an essential service and offered for free to everyone I could see the argument for a parent declining to partake of that service to be negligence. But since it's treated as an optional a la carte service that is priced as a luxury it doesn't make sense to treat it as something where you can be sanctioned for failing to invest in it.

It may be "priced as a luxury," but anyone getting it can attest it pretty much is essential. They'll stake their life on it.

Unfortunately, most of the essentials for life in our society--food, water, clothing and shelter--are all a la carte, often priced as a luxury, and not offered free to everyone.  And if anyone prevented their child from obtaining any of those essentials for an extended period of time, especially when they were vitally needed, the child would be taken away immediately, even if it was done for "religious reasons."

And not being able to pay for them is no excuse.  If you couldn't pay for it on your own, we expect the parents to ask for charity.  The same would apply to obtaining medical services.

[Fenring]

If medical care was considered an essential service and offered for free to everyone I could see the argument for a parent declining to partake of that service to be negligence. But since it's treated as an optional a la carte service that is priced as a luxury it doesn't make sense to treat it as something where you can be sanctioned for failing to invest in it.

Unfortunately, most of the essentials for life in our society--food, water, clothing and shelter--are all a la carte, often priced as a luxury, and not offered free to everyone.

Water is sold a la carte where you live? Do you pay for tap water by the gallon? And as for food and clothing, do you typically spend $50,000 in one shot on these? Some people do, but I bet not you. Shelter is the only one where you have a case to be made, and indeed the rent/housing crisis will only get worse over time. Millennials have bleak prospects for home ownership, and the monthly cost of renting in many cities is the modern equivalent of indentured servitude. It's a different problem but one worth a discussion.

And not being able to pay for them is no excuse.  If you couldn't pay for it on your own, we expect the parents to ask for charity.  The same would apply to obtaining medical services.

Is this sarcastic?

[Wayward Son]

Water is sold a la carte where you live? Do you pay for tap water by the gallon?

You're right, it's not sold a la carte.  But it is still sold.

And as for food and clothing, do you typically spend $50,000 in one shot on these?

True, but it still costs quite a bit of money, especially over the year.

But notice those are only quibbles over how much a person needs to spend.  A parent is still required to spend money on his child.  If you refused to spend money on food, shelter, and the water bill, would the courts or society deem you a worthy parent?

If you think that medical expenses are too expensive to require a parent to seek it to save the life of his child, then what is the line?  How much should a parent spend on his child before we deem the child "too expensive" and the parent can walk away?

And not being able to pay for them is no excuse.  If you couldn't pay for it on your own, we expect the parents to ask for charity.  The same would apply to obtaining medical services.

Is this sarcastic?

No.

Consider the alternative.  A parent knows his child needs surgery to save his life.  He can't afford it.  So he goes home and lets his child die.  End of story.

Wouldn't the parent ask the doctors if there are other options?  If the child could get the surgery at a reduced price?  If a charity would pay for it?

Admittedly, we wouldn't throw a parent in jail if he didn't seek these options.  But what would you think of a parent who didn't?

And why would saying, "God told me not to ask for charity" makes it all better?

God is being used as a "Get Out of Trouble" card, a universal excuse for doing things that we would normally condemn a person for.  Hate blacks?  God told me to.  Hate Muslims?  God said I should.  Hate Homos?  God's going to damn them; I'm just trying to save their souls by firing them.

As if doing any of those things is God's responsibility. 

People can believe anything they want in the name of religion.  But the line stays with them.  When they start making others suffer because of their beliefs, then we need to make them stop.

Because the bottom line is a vast majority of people are wrong in their beliefs.  So we can't use them to dictate morality.  We need something far more universal.

[scifibum]

I think the 1st amendment problem is surmountable.  I think the state has a compelling interest in not letting kids suffer and die needlessly that would probably pass strict scrutiny.  The harder question is under what conditions parents are required to seek/permit medical treatment.  The edges would certainly be fuzzy when it comes to how much medical intervention is reasonable and the conditions under which it can be stopped or withheld.