Mar 30 2008
Is this abuse?
[Yahoo]
The three siblings of a girl who died of diabetes that went untreated as her parents prayed instead of taking her to a doctor have been removed from the home during an investigation, police said Friday. The parents and social services experts agreed the move would be best for everyone, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said. The children are staying with other relatives, though they were not in danger, he said.
“There is no physical evidence of abuse or neglect,” he said.
Madeline Neumann, 11, died Sunday the Weston home of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, prayed for her to get better. Her mother said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.
The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.
The children removed from the home range in age from 13 to 16 and are expected to return to their parents once an investigation of the girl’s death wraps up, Vergin said.
There is no intent. They didn’t want their child to die. They thought what they were doing was the right thing,” he said. “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.”
Read about it here.
[From me]
When I first heard this story last week I was angered. I thought what parent would not take their child to the emergency room or doctor. But I don’t know what these parents were thinking. They were not trying to harm their child. They wanted God to heal them. So is this child abuse?
What do you think?
5 responses so far
I agree, I don’t think the parents had any intent to harm the child. Still and all, the parents’ willful failure to provide medical care, even if there was no malice, constitutes neglect. In this case, their neglect cost the child her life.
I agree with A3 that this is a case of neglect. I can’t see anywhere in Scripture where God forbids the use of physicians. They may not have expected their child to die but anyone with any sense would have taken their child to the doctor. Call me insensitive but I have no patience for parents who take Biblical statements out of context and it costs a child their life. This child didn’t have cancer that required toxic chemotherapy, she had a very treatable condition. You think God might have used a DOCTOR to heal the child!? There’s no excuse for their behavior. I’m not so much angry as I am saddened for them. They have been misguided by someone along the way.
“Neglect” is a form of abuse.
Phil Hoover’s last blog post..“His Music”…
I absolutely agree with Angie. God places different people in different circumstances and surroundings as means of His providence. When we in the USA neglect that provision and demand that God turn stones into bread, we sin. There is nothing wrong with prayer, but when God has provided the best of medical means you should not neglect that. Had this family been in the jungles of Vietnam or India with no provision, that would be one thing. Do these parents have jobs and go to the grocery store to buy food? If yes, then they should go to the doctor!
How long did this child suffer with this ailment?
Honest faith is a good thing. However, I believe that Christians who claim to trust God instead of taking children to the doctor are observing an extremely distorted form of Christianity, perhaps to the point that it is something else entirely.
My heart breaks for these folks, who may have been doing the very best that they knew to do, while some unwise teacher / preacher / doctrinal dictator discouraged them from allowing health professionals to intervene. I suspect there’s a “faith healing” teacher pretty close in this situation who will eventually be found and used to mock Christianity in the press…