Courtesy of our friends at the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life comes news that people who murder their children via extreme and willful neglect will be going to court on manslaughter charges. I’m not talking about a parent who leaves their kid in a locked car on a summer day or has a gun hanging around loaded for a toddler to find. I’m referring to these child abusers who decide that medical intervention is against the teachings of their church and let their children die rather than go to a doctor and take an antibiotic.
Two high-profile deaths from 2008 will land in the courts in 2009 when the Oregon justice system determines whether members of an Oregon City faith-healing church acted criminally in the deaths of two children who were denied medical treatment.
The trials, in Clackamas County Circuit Court, could lead to the first legal tests of a 1999 state law disallowing faith-healing at the expense of a child’s life.
What’s more, the almost-certain appeals in the cases may ask the courts to redefine the balance between freedom of religion and parents’ legal responsibilities for the health and safety of minors.
The first trial, set for Jan. 26, will weigh manslaughter and criminal mistreatment charges against Carl Brent Worthington, 38, and his wife, Raylene Marie Worthington, 26, in the death of their 15-month-old daughter, Ava. The girl died last March of bronchial pneumonia and blood infections after she was denied conventional medical care.
In the second trial, set for June 23, Raylene Worthington’s parents, Jeffrey Dean Beagley, 50, and his wife, Marci Rae Beagley, 47, of Oregon City will face charges of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil. The boy died in June of heart failure triggered by a urinary tract blockage.
In both deaths, state medical examiners said both children could have been treated with routine medical procedures or medicine.
The common thread in both cases is the Followers of Christ Church, a fundamentalist sect that bans medical attention for congregation members, instead relying on prayer vigils and the “laying on of hands.”
This disgusts me. My 2 yr old little girl recently had pneumonia. It is very scary when your child is sick and having trouble breathing. To passively sit and rely on prayer vigils and the “laying on of hands” while that child dies is completely beyond my comprehension as both a parent and a human being. I can guarantee you that if one of those parents were in my presence dying, I would do everything that I possibly could to save their life. So what does that tell you about the difference between “Christian” and atheist morals?
