Sightings 5/22/08
When Prosecutors Grapple with
Prayer
-- Shawn F. Peters
In recent months, prosecutors in
both Oregon and Wisconsin have been confronted with a complex
problem: Should parents who choose to treat their children's
illnesses with prayer rather than medicine be charged with abuse, neglect, or
even manslaughter when their children die? As these cases begin to
play out in the courts, it has become apparent that their task in answering that
question is going to be anything but straightforward, thanks in part to the
ambiguity of laws that might be applied to spiritual healing practices.
The Oregon case involves members of the
Followers of Christ Church, whose faith healing practices generated an intense
statewide outcry in the late 1990's. Church members Carl and
Raylene Worthington currently face manslaughter and criminal mistreatment
charges stemming from the death of their fifteen-month-old daughter, Ava. The toddler died on March 2 from bacterial pneumonia and a blood
infection – ailments that her parents, citing the tenets of their religious
faith, had chosen to treat with prayer rather medicine.
The Worthingtons appear ready to
mount a vigorous defense. Their attorneys already have launched a
website dedicated to both outlining the contours of their defense strategy and
raising money to fund it. But, legally, this promises to be an
uphill climb, thanks to changes in Oregon law that eliminated apparent
exemptions from criminal charges for parents who engaged in faith healing
practices. They most likely will fall back on the claim that their
religious practices are shielded from regulation by the First Amendment and
analogous provisions in Oregon's constitution.
The Wisconsin case is every bit as tragic, but it
might proceed slightly differently in the legal arena. On Easter
Sunday, an 11-year old girl named Kara Neumann died from diabetic
ketoacidosis. Treatments of insulin almost certainly would have
controlled the ailment, but Kara's parents – their beliefs about physical
healing shaped in part by a Flordia-based online ministry – chose to treat her
with prayer in lieu of medical science. Dale and Leilani Neumann
later told police that their daughter had not been examined by a physician in
more than seven years.
In late April, authorities charged
the couple with second-degree reckless homicide, a felony punishable by up to
twenty-five years in prison. But several observers have cautioned
that the prosecution of the Neumanns is bound to be complicated, if not simply
derailed, by the apparent exemption for faith healing practices that remains in
place in the state's child abuse and neglect laws. The couple is
likely to claim that this conflict in the laws (spiritual healing practices
appear to be protected under one part of the criminal code but not under
another) violates their right to due process of law.
Wisconsin's "treatment through prayer"
provision is not unique: More than thirty other states offer
similar kinds of apparent legal protections for devout parents who reject
medicine and turn to prayer when their children are ailing. A
number of groups have lobbied for the repeal of such religious exemptions, chief
among them the advocacy organization Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty
(CHILD). Its head, Rita Swan, has argued that these stipulations,
while safeguarding the religious liberty of parents, endanger the health of
children and violate several different interrelated constitutional standards.
Groups ranging from the United Methodist Church to the National District Attorneys
Association also have called for the repeal of religious exemptions to
child-abuse and neglect laws. Several prominent medical organizations – among
them the American Medical Association and the Bioethics Committee of the
American Academy of Pediatrics – have echoed those
calls. In 1988, the latter body issued a statement declaring that
"all child abuse, neglect, and medical neglect statutes should be applied
without potential or actual exemption for [the] religious beliefs" of
parents. Deeply committed to "the basic moral principles of
justice and of protection of children as vulnerable citizens," the members of
the bioethics committee called upon state legislatures to remove religious
exemption clauses and thereby ensure "equal treatment for all abusive
parents."
A decade after that call for reform,
however, a majority of states, including Wisconsin, have failed to act. Unfortunately, it seems that legislators might only lurch into action and
address the law's shortcomings if the prosecution of the Neumanns misfires.
[Shawn Francis Peters' latest book,
When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children,
and the Law, was published in November by Oxford University Press.
He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.]
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Sightings
comes from the Martin Marty Center at the
University of Chicago Divinity School.
