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Neglect in the Name of Love
What should be done when parents rely on religion instead of medicine to heal sick children?
Mark 16:17-18 provides a terrific and affordable solution to our health care crisis: "They will pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will place their hands on the sick and cure them." The only drawback is that such a technique is more effective in reducing over-population than in healing the sick.
While this may be an extreme example, we don't always have easy answers for where the parent rubber meets the child road. Assuming that parents love their children, some parents still act badly in the name of love--and religion. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that corporal punishment is not only harmful psychologically and physically, it is also an ineffective behavioral strategy. Nevertheless, some parents justify such measures because the Bible says to spare the rod is to spoil the child.
How bad is bad enough for the government to step in? Since our secular government must be neutral regarding religion, what we deem parental abuse should be independent of whether that abuse is for religious or secular reasons. Of course both motive and mental stability should be factors in determining whether the abuse constitutes a crime and what kind of punishment, if any, should be meted to a parent.
As a society, there are certain norms we insist parents observe, regardless of religious belief: education at school or at home until at least age 16; protection from sexual or physical abuse; adequate food and shelter; medical care to the extent possible. When parents are identified as either unwilling or incapable of providing such minimal care, the child needs external protection.
Snake handling aside, many parents reject modern medicine and pray that their child be healed, since they believe all things are possible through God. But we know many serious illnesses are not healed through prayer, regardless of the sincerity of those prayers. So the government must step in to protect the child from medical neglect.
Though adults are free to use prayer, crystals, tarot-cards, or exorcists to cure themselves, society must step in to prevent such "cures" being the only treatment for children with serious illnesses. Compassion for parents who love their children goes only so far. Perhaps this is an example of what Nobel Prize-winning Physicist Steven Weinberg meant when he said: "With or without religion, good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things--that takes religion."
By
Herb Silverman
|
May 23, 2009; 12:40 PM ET
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Posted by: JessFreeborn | June 6, 2009 10:55 PM
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How bad is bad enough for the government to step in?
Religious faith, as the sole source of remediation in this day and age of such scientific certainty has to be considered sufficient evidence of improper (misguided) motive, and mental instability (ignorance to observed fact). The governement should act.
However, with interference, and the likely outcome of saving the child; are we not enabling the faith and perpetuating the ignorance? "God saved my child, through the caring and capable hands of the government."
The welfare of the children is of paramount importance to any society. However, without sufficient educational and rational enlightenment within the faith based society, what long term welfare is gained? Battles are won, individual disease is fought off...but the plague continues.
Where is Galileo when you need him the most?
Posted by: Johannesdesilentio | June 1, 2009 12:28 PM
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The United States lags behind other nations in protecting children. Only the US and Somalia have refused to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Furthermore, seven countries have made corporal punishment of children illegal: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Austria, Cyprus and Italy.
I believe the high rate of violent crime in the United States begins as punitive parents teach their children how to be violent by hitting them and subjecting them to frequent threats of violent punishment. Just compare the US violent crime rate with those rates in countries that ban corporal punishment.
Posted by: Louise10 | May 28, 2009 3:10 PM
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To drink alcohol a child must be 21, to vote 18, to drive a car 16, etc, to fight a war, a child must be 15, to sue or defend oneself effectively one must be economically healthy, to run for office even more so, to be president a citizen must not be a naturalized citizen but a home grown one. So we have a huge variety and range of citizenship in this country, and we are not unique. A child is in the custody of parents and guardians but in various states this capacity is restricted in various ways, in terms of when the state can revoke this capacity and protect its citizen, from abuse or refusal of medical treatment.
Some states are "allowed" to be more aggressive and take custody of a child in need of blood transfusion which parents may refuse for religious reasons, or are allowed to maintain the family structure even though abuse is evident.
A child is born first as a citizen and then as god's slave or parents' property. It is a right and a privilege and it should be an equal right of citizenship and not something that can be quantified. The state must have an absolute equal responsibility against every child citizen for the protection of its physical and mental health, which should include a healthy and stable home, nutrition, access to education and health care, and physical safety. Unfortunately the state doesn't, and none dare call it a democracy when citizens are not equal. A seven year old citizen in Maryland or New York will be taken in protective custody much easier than in Utah or South Carolina, and that may differ in whether the child has life threatening bruises or needs a blood transfusion. A citizen should be allowed to reach adulthood and be protected to decide in whether to follow a religion and vote for regulating parental rights
It has nothing to do with moral choices, it is a question of citizenship and equality.
Posted by: ZeroTolerance | May 27, 2009 6:43 AM
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Good people sometimes do bad things out of love. Good people sometimes do bad things out of haste. Good people sometimes do bad things out of fear. Out of love, out of haste and out of fear, good people sometimes turn to religion and make bad choices for themselves, for their children, for their country.
With love, patience, education and the freedoms intended in our Constitution and its Amendments, good people can leave religion and superstition behind and make responsible and better decisions for ourselves, for our children and our country.
Posted by: MyraRubinstein | May 26, 2009 12:21 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
Wow. It's not often that I see as much insight from the "comments" as I do from the original article.
To add to Johannes' comment, during the plague, in the people's desperation to be saved by a god, they contributed to the plague's spread by congregating within the church. We don't have the same excuse of a lack of knowledge available to us that they had then.