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Parents Face Charges After Children Die from Treatable Conditions
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Child deaths in Wisconsin and Oregon rekindle the debate over spirituality, and whether parents are responsible for seeking medical care.
30-Second Summary
Wisconsin authorities charged Dale and Leilani Neumann with second-degree reckless homicide after their daughter Madeline, 11, died on Easter Sunday of diabetes. Her death, the district attorney in Marathon County says, was preventable. The Neumanns did not seek medical treatment, but instead turned to prayer.
Their story is unusual but not unheard of. An Oregon couple has been indicted for not seeking treatment after Ava Worthington, their 15-month-old daughter, died of bacterial pneumonia, another treatable condition.
A Pennsylvania couple in 2001 went to prison for manslaughter and child endangerment after their daughter died of a condition similar to Madeline’s.
Author Shawn Francis Peters warns that trying cases like the Neumanns’ is “a surprisingly complicated task.”
Online reactions to this story vary. Bryan Lambert of the blog You Are Dumb wrote: “It's unfortunate, and tragic, but that's one of the things that happens to stupid people.”
Unleavened Bread Ministries created a Web site to help the Neumann family. “When I heard Dale and Leilani were being investigated, I thought, how sad, since authorities don’t investigate the people who put their trust in doctors whose family members die by the hundreds of thousands from medical mistakes every year, according the AMA's own admission,” wrote Pastor Bob of Spirit 1 Broadcasting.
Their story is unusual but not unheard of. An Oregon couple has been indicted for not seeking treatment after Ava Worthington, their 15-month-old daughter, died of bacterial pneumonia, another treatable condition.
A Pennsylvania couple in 2001 went to prison for manslaughter and child endangerment after their daughter died of a condition similar to Madeline’s.
Author Shawn Francis Peters warns that trying cases like the Neumanns’ is “a surprisingly complicated task.”
Online reactions to this story vary. Bryan Lambert of the blog You Are Dumb wrote: “It's unfortunate, and tragic, but that's one of the things that happens to stupid people.”
Unleavened Bread Ministries created a Web site to help the Neumann family. “When I heard Dale and Leilani were being investigated, I thought, how sad, since authorities don’t investigate the people who put their trust in doctors whose family members die by the hundreds of thousands from medical mistakes every year, according the AMA's own admission,” wrote Pastor Bob of Spirit 1 Broadcasting.
Headline Links: Parents charged after diabetes death
If convicted, the Neumanns could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, according to the Associated Press. Court documents indicate that family and friends tried to persuade the parents to take her to the doctor. Her father didn’t seek medical care for Madeline because he thought her illness was a “test of faith.” The mother said she thought the girl was under “spiritual attack.”
Source: AP
After several children died in the late 1990s in faith healing-related incidents, the state of Oregon passed a law preventing people from using a “spiritual healing defense,” in cases involving not paying child support, criminal mistreatment and manslaughter. The Worthington case is the first to occur since the law was signed in 1999.
Source: The Oregonian
Opinion & Analysis: Allocating and diffusing blame
Bryan Lambert, author of the blog You are Dumb, says the case is more of “a rage-inducing tragedy than a schadenfreude-inducing yuk-fest.” He adds: “Their daughter was sick. If they'd taken her to a doctor, she'd have received treatment and likely survived. They didn't take her to a doctor because they believed praying would work BETTER. Not as well as. Not even as a substitute for medical care they couldn't afford. But BETTER. And they were wrong.”
Source: You are Dumb
According to Pastor Bob: “Yes, God created doctors but only to give man a choice between man’s ways—the doctor—or His way—faith! When we don’t have faith we need the doctor and it’s obvious that most want-to-be Christians need the doctors because they have no faith in God; their faith is in man. God created good and evil. Witchcraft can heal also. Should Christians also seek witches?”
Source: Help the Neumanns
Shawn Francis Peters, author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law,” writes in the Wausau Daily Herald that Wisconsin’s law “seems to shield from criminal liability those parents who engage in ‘treatment through prayer.’ In several other states, similar provisions have derailed prosecutions of faith-healing parents—much to the dismay of those who believe that those parents have essentially murdered their children in the name of religion.”
Source: Wausau Daily Herald
Related Link: Parents sent to prison in faith-healing death
After Shannon Nixon died at the age of 16 of the treatable condition diabetes acidosis, her parents were convicted of manslaughter and endangering the welfare of children. They were sentenced to up to five years in prison. After the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal, they went to prison, leaving a 25-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter to look after the remaining eight children.
Source: Pittsburg Post-Gazette
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