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Originally Posted by citadel
What's interesting to this discussion is the death of George Washington, who had some strong views on these rights. Bloodletting was a common practice, and widely accepted at the time. Nowadays we know a lot more about the body, and get a good laugh at the intelligence of doctors back then. If you were a parent in the 1800's with a medical understanding based in 2011, would you allow a doctor to drain your child's blood to reduce a fever? Obvious violence against a child is clearly abuse, but where do we draw the line between medical "fact" and religious/personal medical "belief"? If your child had an infection and you wished to provide them with mold to fight it, how sane would you appear to the learned medical community of that day? They would have thought you were out of your mind. Ever read about Ignaz Semmelweis?
What drives the assumption that the parent is crazier than the dirty handed, penicillin ignorant drainer of blood?
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Your framing of this topic strikes me as fundamentally dishonest.
This isn't a question of the development of medical science, it's about rejecting reality at the expense of a child's safety. You're welcome to believe whatever you want as a part of your religious freedom, but endangering the life of someone you're responsible for crosses the line.
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Trial in death of infant raises questions of parental rights, religious freedom
Ava Worthington died surrounded by loved ones who believed their prayers would heal the young child.
As the 15-month-old girl struggled to breathe, church members anointed her with oil and pleaded with God to provide a cure. But Ava died March 2, 2008, of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Antibiotics could have saved her life, the state medical examiner's office said.
Her death was more than a tragedy, according to Clackamas County prosecutors, it was a crime. Ava's parents, Carl and Raylene Worthington, are scheduled for trial beginning Tuesday on charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.
The Worthington case will be the first time anyone in Oregon has been prosecuted under a 1999 law passed in response to an extraordinary number of child deaths involving the Worthingtons' church, the Followers of Christ in Oregon City. The law eliminated religion as a defense in most cases of medical neglect.
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An autopsy showed the girl suffered from a blood infection, pneumonia and a large, benign cyst on her neck that had never been medically addressed.
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The treatment for blood infection, pneumonia, and a cyst on the neck is not prayer and oils, as you well know. It's antibiotics and surgery. We know these treatments work. It's not blood-letting, but rather tested and confirmed science.
Would you allow your own child to die because all you could muster to save his or her life was a prayer? Are you that kind of person?