Girl’s parents’ choice of prayer of medicine proves fatal for girl
This story has been all over the news for the past two days. A young girl, 11 years old, has died because her parents chose to pray rather than take her to the 
hospital. She ultimately died of ketoacidosis (diabetes), and her death would have easily been prevented by a treatment of insulin and basic medical care. The girl’s family “believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.”
The controversy comes from their choices once they noticed something was wrong:
“We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks,” she said Wednesday. “And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering.”
The question, then, is whether or not it is bad parenting to deny / avoid medical care when something is clearly not right.
(More discussion after the jump)
The role that religion plays in this issue is easily substituted by any number of things: Homeopathy, quackery, pseudoscience, general negligence, cult beliefs, etc. It’s not that religion deserves to be singled out in this case, it was just its turn in the spotlight.
As a relatively new parent, I feel I have some additional perspectives on this issue: After my initial disbelief about the story, I found myself thinking “Well, no one in the family was a Doctor, so how would they know something was that wrong? Would I know to take my son to the hospital if I was faced with the same circumstances?”
It’s very easy to judge the family and say “oh, they’re religious nut-jobs ignorant of modern medicine” which may or may not a be true (albeit harsh) assessment. In retrospect, of course they should have taken her into the hospital, right? Hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps it just snuck up on them; They did say in the police report that she had only been severely ill for a couple days, when they began praying in earnest; and the young girl had apparently only had “some tiredness” for a week or two before she finally died. The Doctors say that someone in her condition should have had a full month of nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite, weakness, and other unpleasantness. The family says none of that happened, and I’d like to think that they’re being truthful about that. So no obvious foul play there.
But reading further:
The mother’s sister (in California) called the authorities and said: “My sister-in-law, she’s very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors …, and she called my mother-in-law today … and she explained to us that she believes her daughter’s in a coma now and she’s relying on faith.” When questioned about whether or not they should send an ambulance, the Aunt replied “Please, I mean, she’s refusing. She’s going to fight it. … We’ve been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now.”
The ambulances arrived on the scene within minutes and carted Madeline off to the hospital. Within an hour she was declared dead; it had been too late.
Reading on another AP article, we see the Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin’s conclusion was that “[t]here is no intent. They didn’t want their child to die. They thought what they were doing was the right thing, They believed up to the time she stopped breathing she was going to get better. They just thought it was a spiritual attack. They believed if they prayed enough she would get through it.”
According to ABC News, the Neumann family is loosely affiliated with the Unleavened Bread Ministries group, ” a little-known church that shuns modern medicine in favor of prayer.” When asked what they did when Madeline’s condition worsened, the mother said “We stayed fast in prayer. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that - to us - it looked like she was recovering.”
So is it neglect? Abuse? Did their religious beliefs indirectly cause the child to die?
The parents knowingly avoided medical treatment, even when the girl lapsed into a coma. It is pretty clear that nothing short of a severed limb or broken bone was going to get them to go to a Doctor. If it hadn’t been for the girl’s aunt, she likely would have died in her own house.
Not being Doctors, would they have known how serious it was? I think it’s pretty reasonable that they didn’t go to the hospital right away. If I were in those parents’ shoes, I can’t say that I would immediately run to the hospital or even a Doctor’s office after the first weak of tiredness. But you can be sure that the moment the condition worsened, a Doctor’s checkup would be scheduled ASAP, and the moment she slipped into a coma, we would be en route to a hospital.
What do you think about it?
*UPDATE*
- Recently, on MSNBC, a similar story has happened involving an infection in a 15-month old girl.
- The parents have been charged with reckless homicide (2nd degree)