You want to pray to the invisible guy in the sky? Fine by me. You want to pray instead of taking your kids to the doctor when they're sick? Now we have a problem.
"A couple serving probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor could face new charges now that another son has died.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith healing. They lost their 8-month-old son, Brandon, last week after he suffered from diarrhea and breathing problems for at least a week, and stopped eating. Four years ago, another son died from bacterial pneumonia."
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/2nd-child-of-Pa-couple-dies-af…
What do you think their punishment should be?
God allowed the creation and further advancement of modern medicine for a reason...
That is sickening. How did they just get probation for the first child?
I can't even think of a punishment severe enough for those two jackasses.
Probably at least some jail time. Also, they should have any future children be taken away by child services, until they can prove they're not a threat to the life of their child.
Lethal injection.
Toss them into a volcano to appease my gods
Induce diarrhea and vomiting until they die. Sick fucks.
You know what they say - a family that prayers together stays together... right?
I wonder if the parents are confused about why their prayers didn't work...
The Christian Science believers don't believe in doctors and medicine. My roommate got involved with one of them but resigned cause he plans to go to med school and the girl and her parents were never vaccinated and don't believe in medicine. Pretty insane religion.
Um let's put things in perspective here. It is their kid, they have the right to do whatever they believe is best. They obviously chose wrong and now get to live without their kids. I mean they're living like someone from the 1700s, kids died all the time then. It's their choice, this is the United States. I don't think there should be any punishment.
Besides...survival of the fittest, those kids were gonna grow up to be religious nutjobs anyway.
If you think I'm uncaring and lack emotion, its just because I don't want the government having anything to do with my life or my family. Freedom to live how you choose. (Yes you can argue they didn't give their kids the freedom of life. I agree, but at that age, the kid doesn't even have the freedom to feed itself so not really relevant.)
I definitely feel the same way you do Trades, but at the same time I have to agree with ANT and his POV. This posses an interesting moral argument, because you could argue that the child was 7 and not knowing how sick he was and that if the parents won't get the medicine then government should mandate it--but it doesn't take much thought to see how this power could easily spiral out of control (you are already seeing now in the NYC nanny state with Bloomberg ordering all baby formula locked up in hospitals "because breast feeding is better").
If we can charge the parents for murder on this, then what about other decisions they make for their child that could cause them harm? I learned scuba diving when I was 12, what if I had died? If a parent buys a young kid a go-kart or takes them hiking and the kid dies what happens?---The parents made a decision and their child could have lived it they had only said no. What about feeding a kid too much junk food? What about teaching a child about a super orthodox Islam? I understand that these seem like "radical examples" and in some respect they are, but once you get the government involved in the decisions a parent makes for a child where does it end?
We live in a world where parents are given a great deal of control over children, and they should be, since the child doesn't know any better. As ANT said, survival of the fittest and evolution, we can just hope that the majority of society makes the right decisions for their children and that their life lessons are passed on from generation to generation.
It's the same scenario as that old train example. If you can alter a train's path to save someone' life, should you? Or rather, is inaction the same as murder?
And if you want perspective here:
Let's say a family member has cancer. A doctor and trusted friend (Religion) recommends a risky new experimental treatment (Praying). Everyone you know (society), tells you not to do it and just do the normal treatment (taking the kid to the doctor). You go with the experimental treatment but it does not work out. You did what you truly believed was BEST. It was a mistake. Do you think you should go to prison for that decision? They thought praying was BEST for their kid. Anyone with half a brain knows otherwise, but its not our choice, it's theirs. Yes these situations do correlate. These folks probably prayed day and night trying their best for god to help their kid. It's not as if they just completely neglected them (in our world they did, in theirs they did everything in their 'mortal' power)
Punishment won't do any good. The problem goes way beyond the two of them. There are hundreds, if not thousands, who have been just as blinded by their faith as these two. It's a cult based culture. I'm sure they, and others like them, are telling themselves that 'the Lord' has a reason for what he's doing (i.e. taking the life of the child) or some BS like that to justify current events.
The sad thing is this kind of stuff will keep happening unless some drastic action is taken to eradicate 'the believers' (not to be confused with the beliebers). You need to go to the source of the problem: blind faith.
You know what is more scary than these people doing this shit to their kids? The state deciding what a parent should do and taking over. Humans got to where we are today because of survival of the fittest and evolution.
Well hopefully natural selection will quickly have this type human will die off.
But really, if I was a helpless little kid whose parents thought like this, I think I'd be ok with the state taking over and telling my parents what to do.
It would be pretty cool if the state didn't do anything in cases like these, but there was like a 5 minute window where people could get away with committing crimes against them. That would be preeeety nifty
They are actually making a movie like that.....
This is just sad..smh
But you can't really punish them cause they have a right to believe in whatever they want. Maybe, the social worker will away their child if they plan on having another child...
So the state has the right to mandate medical treatment how the state seems fit? I suppose the state has the right to tell me how many times to go to the dentist, whether I have unprotected sex or not, how many times I wash my hands?
Kid had diarrhea and asthma. I had asthma as a kid and didn't go to the doctors. My parents didn't have the money. I almost died a couple times. Such is life.
Government intervention is far more horrible than the results of these parents acting like they did.
I personally have no problem with the state prosecuting these parents. Their actions led to the death of another individual... twice.
Man, I am a miserable fuck. Whatever.
Funny how Philly is up in arms about this story. Meanwhile Kermit the abortionist, Phillies finest, is having charges dropped:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20130423_Judge_tosses_three_…
It is a thin line with this argument. The kids had issues that every kid has. Suppose they didn't pray, but were broke. Suppose they lived in the country and couldn't get to the hospital.
Charge them with neglect, but anything more than that is tenuous at best.
This story just short circuits my brain. I can't comprehend this level of faith.
I think religion just clouds the argument. It is ignorance. Plenty of people in North Philly not giving a fuck about their kids and shit happening. There was a legitimate backlash on inoculations because people thought it caused retardation or something. Dumb people do dumb things.
I'm an atheist and agree 100%. These religion stories grab headlines but plain vanilla neglect doesn't get a second glance and happens far more frequently.
I also think in this case you need to look at intent. While these parents are retards, they clearly didn't want their kids to die. These fuckers probably pray'd a storm up and burnt all kinds of candles or whatever they do. Kind of the same thing when people blood let or do hail mary medical actions.
Yeah I know this is a simple thing. Why these dumb ass parents didn't just give the kids some pedilite is beyond me.
IMO, from the looks of these neanderthals their DNA doesn't produce offspring that can handle the trials and tribulations of the world.
That's the key. I seriously doubt the parents had the intent to kill the child, which makes it manslaughter or maybe negligent homicide, at best/worst.
And ANT, you do make a point with the natural selection thought. We've advanced medicine to the point where you can save practically everyone...the sick, the insane and the criminal. Clearly this is noble and I would have a hard time choosing not to do it, but I do believe there are long-term implications. Granted none of us will be around to see what that means (Idiocracy, anyone?), but it's got to have an impact, eventually.
Regards
Reasonable points on both sides. My guess is that the two differing factions are divided by the "have kids already/want kids vs. no kids/don't want kids" line. Personally, it's hard to me to comprehend this level of faith. I think it's criminal. But you can't regulate stupid.
This.
For the record I think most people on here want kids (I do at least). Even ANT and I find these parents stupid and can't understand that level of blind faith, but we are more
radicalguarded in our views on government intervention and control---we look at the overall consequences and the potential future government intervention that might arise rather than looking at it on a case by case basis. I may not agree with your actions, but I will defend to the death your right to do it.Can I go ahead and advise you not take it to death? That's pretty ballsy bronamath
Gek, welcome back bro. Good to see you posting more. Shoot me an email/text sometime.
This really depends on state law. In many states, they wouldn't have even been criminally punished for the first child's death. It boils down to a few principals, but mainly boils down to the right to refuse care. As parents, they provide the consent to care for children (since in most cases children are deemed not competent for such decisions). Like Jehovah's witness who refuses blood transfusions, faith trumps. However, some states do have carve outs in the case of children (but in fact this is the minority position, though ranges apply).
Yeah, the state would have to somehow charge the parents as unfit, so they could take custody of the child and then provide the necessary care as their temporary guardian. Of course, that has lawsuit written all over it. At any rate, it isn't as cut and dry as some would (like to) think.
Regards
The government will sell itself using this case, but in practice it will tell you what to feed your kids, whether you can smoke around them, what you can teach your kids, etc.
While this is horrible it isn't as horrible as government intervention.
As an aside, let me point out that "Christian Science" is not "fundamentalist Christianity". The apostles/disciples (those who knew Jesus) were, according to the Bible, given the power to heal in the name of Jesus. That has never been interpreted at any point ever to mean that there is some form of Biblical rejection of science and medicine. Christian Science falls well outside the realm of fundamentalist Christianity. In fact, it's probably the opposite of fundamentalism.
I certainly don't think you can argue the parents were negligent in this situation. I believe they very well knew what they were doing. And that pisses me off. I would love to slap some sense into them. This level of ignorance is criminal and can't go completely unpunished.
That said, my anger does not outweigh my fear of living in a world where I'm told how I will provide and care for my child. I'll do the best I can as a parent and how I and my family see fit.
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