Parents Opt For Prayer Over Medicine, Baby Dies As A Result
Oh, Jesus. Once again, God has failed to personally come down from His Throne In Heaven and save a baby in need of medical attention. I know, I know - I’m just as surprised as you are. I guess He has His hands full, making images of the Virgin Mary appear on burned grilled cheese sandwiches and convincing old people to send Pat Robertson all of their money. Louis and Patricia Leeman heeded the advice of their church elders (”Doctors? Feh.”), and sadly their six-day-old daughter paid the price.
Apparently, the Church of The First Born in Gosport, Indiana, needs to hire a statistician. When you’re 0-for-2 in the “Prayers Will Save Sick Babies” category, some adjustments are in order. A grand jury will convene to determine the fate of the Leemans; church elder Thomas Nation told reporters that it’s all in God’s hands now. God, meanwhile, has issued this statement: “It seems I need to add an 11th Commandment. I’m thinking of something along the lines of, ‘Thou shalt not be a fucking moron and look to Me to bail thy stupid ass out when thou makest galactically idiotic decisions.’ That should cover quite a few bases, actually.”
Tags: baby, Death, indiana, neglect, parents, religion
21 opinions for Parents Opt For Prayer Over Medicine, Baby Dies As A Result
Candace J
Oct 6, 2005 at 11:01 am
My favorite: the church elder who said that jail time and sentencing are solely in the hands of God.
Um…I don’t think he understands the judicial system.
And let’s just assume that God *is* in control of everything…wouldn’t that include medicine and doctors and hospitals?
Ann Adams
Oct 6, 2005 at 12:15 pm
“Congress shall make no law” etc. does not include the practice of allowing children to die and calling it God’s will.
Where do these people get their ideas? God gives us brains for a reason. When do we start using them?
To a person of faith, prayer is essential but I believe I’d be praying for the doctor and his medical skills right along with my child.
BTW, Luke was a physician at the same time he was writing two Books of the New Testament.
That Girl
Oct 7, 2005 at 2:23 am
Even though this was not their reasoning (maybe) I cant help but think that it is unfair to require parents to provide medical care for children. We just passed laws making it difficult for people to declare bankruptcy even due to high medical bills. We also have no laws limiting the persistance of collection agencies (or their abusive practices), and the effect that the burden of medical bills might have on the rest of our lives (it effects credit scores which effect home owning,credit card rates, etc.)
Basically, we are saying to people - you are required to medically treat your children to the fullest extent even if such treatment results in your losing your house, working several jobs and any stress on you or your marriage/family that medical bills may cost.
“Treatable infection” aside, I highly doubt that if these parents had taken their child to a hospital she would have been treated and released - a 3 pound baby would have most likely been required to spend time in the NICU at a cost of $5,000+ a day.
Candace J
Oct 7, 2005 at 6:21 am
I’d rather lose everything I have than watch my child die.
But that’s just me.
Jason
Oct 7, 2005 at 6:58 am
(Reads That Girl’s comment, jaw hits floor)
“…a 3 pound baby would have most likely been required to spend time in the NICU”. Gee - ya think? As for your first paragraph…
Why do I get the feeling that one of us is going to be doing a Parents Behaving Badly piece on you in the near future?
Lori
Oct 7, 2005 at 9:17 pm
I am really hoping That Girl does not have children. Now or in the future. Just her first line leads me to believe you are correct Jason. Next case of medical neglect?
I would rather live in a cardboard box than see my kids suffer, let alone die. If you do not feel the need to provide medical care for your child, think twice about having them. Spare them your ignorance.
Jamie
Oct 8, 2005 at 7:03 am
In the Bible, even Jesus refuses to test God. He could have jumped off of the building–God would have saved him, right? These religious leaders need to revisit their faith, I think.
And, That Girl, your comment doesn’t indicate whether or not you have children, but… part of me hopes you never do, and part of me hopes that you have a kiddo or two to help you better understand that, y’know, sometimes, as a parent, nothing is more important to you than the life of your child. :\
achromic
Oct 8, 2005 at 8:05 pm
I’m with Bill Maur I think that religion is a sign of mental illness and fanitcal religion is more then just a sign it is mental illness all into itself. People with “extrem” religion …. should be visited by regularly and often by DYFS or whatever child protective service is called in your area.
The same people that will fight you on abortion and right to die, will kill their own children with lack of medical care.
achromic
Oct 8, 2005 at 8:07 pm
PS. To That Gril, we require that we save the elderly to the full extent possible all the time… are they more worthy? If a family memeber allowed an elderly parent to die in the same fashion it would be called murder.
That Girl
Oct 10, 2005 at 5:35 am
Yes, this is the emotional response that people have to kids being sick. It helps keep anyone from having a real conversation about healthcare and the costs of keeping anyone (child, adult, etc.) alive at any cost.
I have a disabled child. I love him and care for him and obtain for him the best treatment on Earth.
My point is that I will die under the crushing weight of the debt I owe for his life. There is no reasonable way I could pay it off in my lifetime.
I made the choice happily, but to pretend that there is no other choice is ridiculous and childish.
Over half of the parents whos children have this condition choose termination (it is the recommended option). Another 10-20% choose to let their child die after birth in a “managed” way (the hospital provides drugs and a room).
So someone somewhere decided that this disability was horrible enough that they would let a child die from it. Who gets to decide?
My point was that knee-jerk reactions and labeling someone a bad parent dont in any way move informed debate along or help resolve these issues.
That Girl
Oct 10, 2005 at 7:01 am
PS Feel free to blog about what a bad parent I am. My 14 year old would no doubt be delighted to help you. Sometimes I snap at him when he has forgotten for the 45th time to turn the toaster oven off.
I yelled at him a few times due to his habit of wandering off and forgetting to tell anyone.
I screamed at him once when he set the living room on fire.
My younger son is disabled and only 3 months. He will no doubt have a lot less of an opportunity to wander away, etc., but Im sure Ill end up snapping at him at some point for something when he’s older.
I give the “death glare” sometimes for various things. And sometimes I just make mistakes.
Let the bashing begin.
Jason
Oct 11, 2005 at 12:12 pm
That Girl - I’ll admit to my knee-jerk reaction; I read your blog after posting my response to your initial comment. There’s two issues here. One - the parents in this article refused treatment out some bizarre obligation to the teachings of their church; nothing in the article indicates that their financial situation had anything to do with it.
Two - after reading a few of your blog entries…I feel like an ass. I can’t fathom being in your shoes, and I don’t have any right to judge you. My sincere apologies for the comment. Sometimes things aren’t as black and white as we want them to be.
That Girl
Oct 12, 2005 at 6:49 am
Jason, you’re sweet to say so. This forum is obviosly designed to highlight bad parenting and be amusing and snarky (all things I appreciate). I just cant help sometimes playing the devil’s advocate and wondering if there is any additional complexity involved in the stories we read.
stefanie
Oct 13, 2005 at 8:16 pm
I’m sure I’m going to regret getting into this, but I feel I, like ThatGirl, need to play Devil’s Advocate a little. What if you were told you could NEVER take your child to a doctor/hospital again because it was tantamount to child abuse in that there were reports that children *die* in hospitals. I imagine you’d say something like, “But I’ve been going to doctors my whole life! They have cured me of everything from penumonia to ear infections to ingrown toenails! My husband has successfully managed his asthma with medical treatment for 5 years! Aunt M. was healed of alcoholism! How can you ask me to leave everything I know and trust for a system that doesn’t work all the time?” That’s exactly how I feel as a person who practices spiritual healing and is pressured to rely on traditional medical care. The above-mentioned healings (plus many more) have happened to me and my family while relying solely on spiritual means. It’s not that I don’t love and respect MDs, because I do. (I know it’s cliche, but yes, one of my best friends is, in fact, an MD). It’s just that I choose a different system, one that I’ve known all my life, and it works. Are there instances when it doesn’t work? Without doubt. Are there instances when people die pursuing spiritual healing when it’s possible that a hospital might have saved them? Arguably. But I actually went to the hospital while pregnant because I was very ill and became concerned that the baby might be compromised, and you know what? The wonderful and well-meaning doctors there had no idea what was wrong and discharged me without ever coming up with a firm diagnosis. Spiritual healing eventually cured the condition.In addition, many of the folks I know who have been healed through spiritual means came to it because doctors had given them no hope, and these patients weren’t ready to give up. One friend had congestive heart failure and his family had already started picking out his coffin when he was healed. So while I know of a great many cases where medical science had failed and spiritual healing worked, I *certainly* wouldn’t accuse someone whose child died, God forbid, under medical treatment–even when spiritual healing might have saved them. I would assume that they were making the best and most informed choice they could.Also, while I don’t know anything about the church mentioned here, it seems to be painting with quite a broad brush to assume that the church forced these folks to avoid medical treatment. In my church, where most people practice spiritual healing exclusively, I have NEVER seen anyone bat an eye when someone makes a trip to the doctor/goes to the hospital/has surgery. Since my husband was used to medical treatment (not having been raised in the same faith tradition as I was), we took our child to the doctor for the first several months of his life, and no one in my church even gave us any indication that we were doing the wrong thing; they were as wonderful to us as they’ve always been. When we felt that the advice we were getting from the doctor was bogus, they never said “I told you so” or anything like that. I’m sure I’ll be called everything from a child-abuser to a whack-job, but I felt it was important to stand up for the informed, loving and well-intentioned people who choose another path. Do I pray for my child to be protected from disease and death? Yes, every day. But I pray for *everyone’s* kids this way and know that most parents want the same thing, whatever means they choose.
Jason
Oct 14, 2005 at 8:34 am
Oi - Stephanie, I already had a big headache this morning, and your argument made it worse.
Essentially, you are proposing that faith - specifically, YOUR faith - is on at least an equal footing with science. You argue that spiritual healing is comparable to medicine because neither has a 100% success rate.
That’s a bogus argument, and all one needs to do is look at the success rates on both sides to negate it. Put another way - suppose the world were devoid of doctors, and faith healing was the only way to go? Wait - we don’t need to, because this has already happened. Compare mortality rates from past centuries (including predominantly Christian societies), before the advent of modern medical practices.
Where you really stumble is here: “Are there instances when people die pursuing spiritual healing when it’s possible that a hospital might have saved them? Arguably.” No. There is no “arguably”. The correct answer to that is “Yes. Many times over.” All one needs to do is look at some of the causes of death for people who opt for prayer in lieu of medical science.
I’ll give you “loving and well-intentioned”. But informed? No. And frankly, I don’t particularly care if, as an adult, you make the choice to ignore medicine. But to make that choice for a child, who is incapable of making that choice for him or herself, is appalling.
stefanie
Oct 14, 2005 at 12:28 pm
What about the cases where medical science has given up and spiritual healing takes over and cures? Is it only okay to pursue “my” methods for my child when “yours” have failed? My husband’s athsma was life-altering and nothing the doctors he saw ever did anything that made any substantial difference, but now he is symptom-free, solely from spiritual healing. How could I NOT offer this freedom to my child? When I meet people who say “Wow, I know someone who practiced spiritual healing and their kid DIED,” am I allowed to say “Gosh, my friend took *her* baby to the hospital and the baby died. I understand your fears and pain”???Anyone in medicine who’s been doing it a while will tell you that it’s more art than science, and doctors get it wrong all the time. I’m not going to say that medical practice hasn’t improved quality of life for many, but I would bet that improved hygiene and living conditions, better and more available food and housing have contributed substantially to the improved quality of life of which you speak also–it can’t all be because of improved medical care. Additionally, when you consider the fact that since childbirth has become highly medicalized, the maternal mortality rate has actually gone UP in the US, your argument doesn’t wash at all. I don’t expect people to like seeing the flaws with the medical system, especially if it’s what they choose for their kids. But it does have flaws.Also, in exactly which situations is it okay for a parent to”make a choice for a child” that, in your opinion, might risk his life? Kids die or have developmental problems from complications of getting vaccines and some kids who are vaccinated against something get the disease anyway! In addition, what about parents who risk their kids’ lives over nonnecessary medical procedures, like circumcision? Kids die while being circumcized, and yet no one I know blasts those parents for taking “unneccessary risks.” I’n not expecting the world to embrace what spiritual healing has to offer overnight. All I’m saying is let’s look at the issues here and not pretend this is a black-and-white issue where physical science=good and spirituality=bogus. That’s far too simplistic.
Jason
Oct 14, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Again, Stephanie - show me the numbers. Show me the percentages of kids who have died from circumcision as opposed to those who died because they had an illness and their parents refused to take them to a hospital. Show me the percentages of kids who are immunized and die from illnesses that they would “get anyway” as opposed to kids who are not vaccinated and die from those illnesses (stats from Africa might be a good place to start). And show me the irrefutable proof that improved medical care for mothers and newborns has caused a rise in mortality rate. (And by “irrefutable”, I don’t mean that the number of recorded cases of infant deaths has increased over the past two hundred years. That is a by-product of the Information Age - better documentation and record-keeping.)
I’m curious about something. What, exactly, does spiritual healing cover? If your kid breaks his leg, do you pray to God to heal him? In other words, where does one who believes in the power of God to cure all ills draw the line? Or is there a line at all?
Let me tell you about choice. I speak from the perspective of someone who did make the choice to bring his kid into the hospital when he came down with an illness that only a handful of doctors on the West Coast had even HEARD of. Turns out he had Kawasaki Disease, and the attending physician had been working on a team that’s devoted to finding the cause and cure. I don’t know if it was luck, destiny, God’s will, or the Force that put that particular doctor on rotation at Children’s the day we brought him in. What do I do know is this: what kept my kid from developing aneyurisms, heart disease and possibly dying at a very young age was medical knowledge resulting from decades of study and research.
But you know, whatever. Religion and politics - the two unwinnable arguments. Do “miracles” happen? Sure they do. We hear about them every so often. But that’s why we refer to them as “miracles”. You do your thing, and the rest of us will take our kids to the doctor. We’ll take those odds.
stefanie
Oct 17, 2005 at 10:48 am
Jason, please believe that I rejoice with you in the sucessful diagnosis, treatment and recovery of your son. I found your story very moving, and it highlights what I think my point in the first comment was: that it tends to be our individual experiences rather than “numbers” that dictate why we do what we do. You take your kid(s) to the doctor because you’ve obviously had incredibly positive experiences with that–and I doubt very much that you’d stop even if someone could show you “numbers” that suggested the hospital you visited was sub-par, that doctors lose patients all the time, etc. The hospital saved your kid’s life, right? Your “miraculous” experience with that hospital would have to trump the numbers, wouldn’t it? That was exactly my point–that numbers are in many way irrelevant because they can always be manipulated and, more importantly, they are easy to ignore when our own experiences have been contradictory to what the numbers indicate. I would imagine that “numbers” would be cold comfort to the parents of children who died from complications of circumcision (which is how the deaths are recorded, so no hard data’s available for exactly how many kids die from the effects of the surgery, like improper anaethesia, painkillers or blood loss.) My point was that no one criticizes these parents for taking that risk with their kid’s health, despite the fact that there are NO substantial health benefits to circumcision. None of you at PBB would do a story about a parent whose child died from complications of circumcision, would you? That’s all I’m saying–some folks make choices that are more palatable than others, but which carry a certain amount of health risk. And as for a discussion about what spiritual healing entails: if you’re sincere, I’d be happy to email you sources of information about the kind of spiritual healing I practice but I don’t think this comments section is the time or place to discuss what you might imagine is quite a complex issue! There is an MD named Larry Dossey who’s investigated the spirituality/health connection a bit, but I haven’t read enough of his stuff to give it a solid recommend. But feel free to contact me if you are truly curious–it might be nice to know about in case you need a backup, right? :) I do wish you the best.
former hoosier
Oct 26, 2005 at 11:58 am
believe me when i say that this church is not a religion, but a cult, i am a former member. from the time that i can remember, my family were also members, i was “taught” not to believe in doctors. when i was 11 my mother died of kidney stones, 13 my father died from alcoholism, 14 my grandmother died, 16 my grandfather died and 19 my sister died from complications from child birth, she had the baby at home. the baby is now 23 years old and very healthy, but my sister did not live to see her 2 beautiful granddaughters, due to the fact that we did not believe in doctors. before i was 20 years old i had basically lost my family because i had it “rammed” down my throat that doctors were the devils workshop!! one of the elders that i had listened to all my life was my father-in-law and 4-5 weeks before he died, he went to the hospital in martinsville, indiana, where it was determined that he had colon cancer, this was a man that had “preached” to all of us our entire lives no to go to doctors. if this is not what you would call a hypocrite i don’t know what is!! if God did not want there to be doctors He would have not given them the knowledge that they have. i am just thankful that i was strong enough to get out, before it was too late. don’t get me wrong, i believe in God, i just don’t believe in religion.
nhcountrygirl
Dec 15, 2005 at 4:28 pm
I’m late to this discussion but I wanted to add that I think spirituality does have a place in this world but not in health care. It’s like Tom Cruise’s attitude about psychology; we all have our own opinions about things and I respect that, but as a counselor working with the population I do I KNOW mental illness exists. Just hoping it will go away doesn’t work. Technology has brought health care so far; it’s a travesty to ignore it. I agree with Jason; when you’re an adult, choose what you will and feel at peace with it. But don’t make life and death decisions like that for people who have no way of choosing for themselves.
nodtveidt
Dec 24, 2005 at 12:58 pm
A little late here as well, but I have a couple of comments to add. First of all, “spiritual healing” is completely psychological. Anyone who is “cured” through “spiritual healing” is so convinced that it will work that their body simply heals itself. Second of all, “miracles” are only miracles because we cannot adequately explain how they happened. That doesn’t mean they will always be unexplainable. Of course, when a “miracle” happens to a religious person, it’s automatically the work of “God”. Well, whatever makes them feel better I guess…as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss.