Posted on 07/17/2018 1:04:13 PM PDT by Morgana
Equal treatment under the law is a cornerstone of our government—but one group of humans doesn’t get the same treatment as everyone else.
What does being born change about a child? Speaking strictly scientifically, nothing of consequence. A child minutes before birth is the same as a child minutes after birth: same physical capabilities, same level of development, both highly dependent on others, they even look more or less the same. Both dream, suck their thumbs, respond to mom’s voice, and feel pain.
But when it comes to both federal and state law, the difference between an unborn baby and a born one is huge. For example, how we prosecute cases of wrongful infant death.
Last week, the Washington Post gave an example that breaks my heart for many reasons. Sarah and Travis Mitchell of Oregon were sentenced to six years in prison for criminally negligent homicide because they refused to seek medical care for their premature baby girl, Ginnifer. Born at just 32 weeks, at just 3 pounds 6 ounces, Ginnifer died hours after birth of fully treatable complications. Her twin survived and is now in foster care.
See, her parents are part of a Pentecostal faith-healing sect that teaches members to pray instead of securing modern medical treatment. Clackamas County officials say the Mitchells are the fifth family in their church in nine years to face similar criminal charges for failing to take a sick or injured child to the hospital.
One former member of the church told the Oregonian newspaper that “they have their own graveyard, and it’s just full of children,” children who, by all accounts, would still be alive if their parent had sought the help of doctors.
Now, this story brings up many tough issues. For example, being well-intentioned and sincere—as I’m sure the Mitchells are—is not enough. It cost their baby her life. And there are limits to religious freedom. The government is right, in this case, to intervene so that children do not continue to die.
And we could also talk about how or when or why God heals, sometimes through doctors and other times in ways we would call miraculous.
But there’s another angle to this story that I don’t want to miss—where it happened, and the incredible hypocrisy it reveals. You see, Oregon is the single most pro-abortion state in the country. It has absolutely none of the abortion restrictions on the books elsewhere, like mandatory waiting periods, parental consent laws, or a ban on late-term abortions. In fact, the state legislature is only now considering a very narrow restriction on late third-trimester, sex-selective abortions. So if you want to kill a baby for being the wrong sex, you’ll have to do it early. And to top it all off, last November the governor of Oregon signed a law mandating that insurance companies fully subsidize all abortions, including for illegal immigrants.
Now let me be clear, the Mitchells were rightly prosecuted for allowing their baby girl to die, even though they prayed for her to live. But had they wanted to kill Ginnifer, they could have driven to the nearest abortion clinic an hour before her birth—and get this—the state of Oregon would have paid for it.
This legal doublethink is mind-boggling. It means that a baby just out of the womb has the legal rights of a person and deserves protection and help, but just moments earlier is a non-person whom the state will pay to have killed!
As Scott Klusendorf with the Life Training Institute teaches, there are only four differences between unborn and born babies, which you can remember with an acronym: S.L.E.D.: size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. None of those things are valid reasons to kill an unborn child.
But Oregon will facilitate and subsidize some killing, while prosecuting others. It’s the height of hypocrisy, it’s insane, and it shows what a monstrosity legal abortion really is. If we value a premature baby after birth, we should value that same baby just as highly before birth. Because, in every important sense, it’s the same baby.
Be that as it may they have the right to freedom of religion in this country and they were following it.
It's a very thin line here.
FReepers what say you?
I’m a Pentecostal Christian who believes in faith healing.
I also believe in taking your child to the doctor.
God gave us doctors for a reason.
I pinged you all because you seem to post a lot in the Religion forum and want your opinion on this story.
This couple?
Was their religious freedom denied or were they being neglectful in not getting their baby medical help?
I want to hear from everyone. Thank you.
Premature. So the baby can live, with care. But an abortion at the same stage would have been 100% legal and protected. So, if you kill your baby, you can just claim that you were performing an abortion.
AMEN
Lock their butts away...
It can be said that God put herbs and materials on earth to heal the sick and God put the ability to gain knowledge in a person’d brain to become a doctor and heal the sick...
It can be said that God put ALL things here for humans to use and help themselves...
Yes I agree but was their religious freedom denied? Do they have the right to just “pray over their baby”?
After all Muslims can now mutilate the female parts of little girls in the name of Islam there in America.
They don’t have any right to kill their child for their religious beliefs. The child is already a separate person, created by God, and their duty as parents is to protect that child and keep him or her alive. But flaky cults have other ideas, and power (the power of the cult) is all.
And, btw, abortion is a religion, or at any rate the sacrament of the civil religion, and pro-abortionists deny that the unborn child is a separate human being with a right to life...and increasingly, this is being used to deny born children (fragile or with defects or even possibly going to have defects) the treatment they need.
So I’d say the two extremes have met in the middle, on the pro-death side.
Tough call. My Aunt gave birth to twin boys. One was 100% healthy, the other was born with no kidneys and died a few hours after birth.
The hospital didn’t do anything heroic to save him - not sure if anyone can survive that. Is there Baby Dialysis? If so, why wasn’t it tried? Why not do a quick kidney transplant from the healthy twin to try to save the unhealthy one, risking them both?
I’m glad my Aunt and Uncle weren’t sent to prison for that.
I’m also glad these aren’t my decisions to make.
I also wish Roe v. Wade had never become bogus law. It muddies the waters in ANY case involving babies in that it’s a ‘baby’ if you want it, it’s a ‘lump of cells’ if you don’t. :(
Why do we celebrate impending Births with Baby Showers if it’s just a lump of cells and there really isn’t a Human Baby in there? Explain that one to me, Pro-Abortionists.
“They don’t have any right to kill their child for their religious beliefs. The child is already a separate person, created by God, and their duty as parents is to protect that child and keep him or her alive. But flaky cults have other ideas, and power (the power of the cult) is all.”
Be very careful when you say that!! Why? Then you get into a grey area! Then you say well parents don’t have the right to bring them up Christian if the kids protest if they don’t want to go to church!
They send these people to prison while babies are murdered behind closed doors in hospitals and abortion mills and the abortionists, mothers and fathers are not held to account for those murders. This is proof that humans are inherently bad and we need Jesus as our savior.
JoMa
BTW Skooz I am friends with Pentecostals and they very much believe in going to the doctor or hospital when needed. Just thought I say that for the record.
This bunch, who ever they are is an oddball group.
Wait, You can kill a third trimester baby with a knife it his brain but you cant refuse medication to a baby the same age? I’m lost.
The premature baby was at risk. To be responsible for a child and know that it is at risk and do nothing is to take responsibility for the results of that do nothing attitude. In this case it was death. The couple was responsible for that child and the death that followed. Religion is no excuse to kill a child. Each case should be judged on its own merits. In another instance parents should be given reasonable leeway for the care of their child. Just not this time.
The hypocrites in society will celebrate the “right to choose” to kill a baby but will screech about this instance when the lack of lifesaving care is due to Christian reasons. I guess the only difference is location.
On the other hand, if this church has their own graveyard “full of children,” as one former member says, perhaps there are other issues pointing to violence or abuse.
This is indeed a thin line, but it eventually leads to taking children away from “homophobic” parents or parents who will not allow brainwashed children of theirs to “transition into” the other sex.
We are on the threshold of that brave new world.
I have known a few Christian Scientists, who also tend to avoid using doctors. As with any faith system, some are more by the book than others. If this kind of prosecution becomes routine, any Christian Scientist essentially loses there rights when it comes to receiving health care for their children. We should be very careful as a country if we’re going to start declaring certain religious BELIEFS as illegal. Certain actions, I can see making illegal; genital mutilation, for one, disallowing blood transfusions being another.
I don’t know what to advise in reference to newborns. They are already so delicate as is, and their lives are not assured for the first few weeks, is my impression. I don’t know a lot about people that very young.
At a certain point, it could be declared that this infant is very likely to survive under the correct and most common conditions. Therefore, after this particular point, to deny them medical assistance is equal to premeditated murder.
I don’t like the idea of sending two grieving young parents to jail for six years because they were following their faith.
Their so called right to religious freedom ends at the length of their arm. They may not impose to death no less on their children.
Snake handling is outlawed. Multiple wives is out lawned. There are lots of “religious “ practises that cannot be done
The parents religious practices do not automatically fall to the children
They killed their baby. This is a small mostly same family church. Started by an untrained man who does not know or understand the Bible. Not unlike Mormons
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