There have been criminal cases involving parents being charged for the death of their children because they refused to get them medical help that was available due to their deep religious convictions. In some states, religious belief is no justifiable reason to keep a child from receiving the medical attention they may need, however, the Department of Health and Human Services counted at least thirty states with exemption laws for faith-based healing. The HHS also says that there is nothing in the 1974 Child abuse Prevention and Treatment Act that requires a parent or legal guardian to seek medical help for their children if they have religious convictions opposed to doing so.
This is a difficult controversy between the public’s interest in protecting the health and safety of children and the religious free exercise of parents and that of their own kids. I have a hard time taking a side and finding a right answer within this issue. My first instinct would actually be to defend the fundamental right of the parent’s free exercise of religion. For a parent to refuse medical help for their deathly-ill child, they’ve got to have a very strong religious belief in opposing such medical treatment. Like Dr. Asser said in the report, the parents cared about and loved their children. They believed completely that they were doing the right thing for them. They were acting upon very deep religious convictions. So, the twenty-or-so states that do not give religious exemptions for the denial of medical treatment of children are putting parents with such religious belief between a rock and a hard place. They are forcing them to choose between what must be some sort of supreme religious punishment and being charged with the death of their child and imprisoned. They are being forced to choose between the rule of their religion or god and the rule of law. However, the flipside is pressing as well. We aren’t talking about parents pulling their children out of school after the eighth grade; we’re talking about children who are sick and dying and aren’t receiving the medical attention they may need to live. At what point does the state not only have the authority, but have the duty to step in and protect the life of a child? I wonder, also, what would be the case if the child decides, contrary to his or her parents, that he or she wants the medical attention? What kind of authority does a minor have over his or her own body? Are children’s lives at the complete mercy of their parents? And, lastly, should they be?
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I agree with Rachel, in that there is no easy answer when you are balancing such delicate issues. This brings up the belief versus action distinction: you have the right to believe whatever you want, but when your actions result in harm to another person, those rights can properly be limited. I believe that the physical health of the child needs to trump the other competing interests involved; however, I do not know how the state/medical professionals can properly intervene. The child's decisions should be respected if they decide to seek medical treatment, because it is ultimately their lives in the balance. What if the child wants medical treatment, but the parents refuse? Can a third party intervene at that point, for the best interest of the child? What about varying decrees of health concerns (for example, decisions to not vaccinate, versus decisions to not seek life-saving treatment); what sort of slippery slope are we on?
This is a very interesting debate and it is not easy to find answers. However, in the case of a dying child, I think doctors should be able to disregard the will of the parents in order to save the child's life. At the very least, an age needs to be established for these types of cases specifically, where a child is old enough to decide whether or not to follow the wishes of their parents. For example, an 8 year old is not capable of making this decision, and in the absence of parents acting in the best interests of the child, then the doctors need to do what is necessary. Unfortunately, this may violate the religious beliefs of the parents, but it violates the human rights of the child if they die when they could have lived.
As the last commenter mentioned, it is indeed a slippery slope. Many states are struggling with the idea of vaccination exemptions. The question is whether there is actually a difference. Is choosing to disregard medical help that would save a child any different from refusing vaccination that could also save the child later in life?
I think it is important to examine the assertions that this must be a strong religious conviction in order for the parent to allow their child to die. One of the main issues surrounding this is the validity of the belief in my opinion. We have seen countless acts of senseless child abuse that results in the death of a child and in truth, one of my deepest fears is that a parent will allow their child to die and then claim God for asylum. The other portion is centrality. We have seen over and over how much the court cares about the centrality of the belief- how important does medical refusal have to be in order to gain a religious exemption? The flip side of this is establishment. How can we allow exemptions for religion and not for non-religion? An example of this could be vaccinations in IA where you must have a religious exemption in order for your child to be granted entry without their boosters. In our class, we frequently face the dilemma- it’s all or nothing and everything is a slippery slope. If we allow the religious community to have their exemptions, we have to open it up for others because otherwise it is establishment and risk abuse of innocent children unable to care for themselves. If we do not allow religious followers to follow their beliefs we are constricting a fundamental right in the constitution and enter other issues regarding who is responsible for paying for the treatment, parental abandonment and follow up treatment beyond the life and death situation. Both are detrimental to the child. We should have never allowed an exemption, but now that we have, how can we go back?
I don’t think that parents should be allowed to claim religious exemption when their children die because they refused to get them medical treatment. Law is used to protect people from harm or injustice. Children are some of the most vulnerable people simply because they can’t protect themselves. The law should help protect those children from physical harm.
I think that parents can decide whether or not their children have non-life threatening procedures. Parents can make the decision in those cases, but when the child’s life is at stake and they refuse to get treatment for the child, then the law should step in. Society should help protect children, and allowing parents to let their children die for any reason that could have been prevented is in my opinion inexcusable.
What about the rights of the children? Yes, the parents have a right to practice their religion. But, at some point the law has to consider the rights of the children, who are ultimately negatively affected. A central goal of the United States government should be to give a voice to persons who would otherwise go unheard. In this case, that voice belongs to the children who have not yet pledged their allegiance to any religion but suffer from a fatal illness. When rights of different groups, in this case parents and children, conflict, the government has to assign appropriate priorities.
This is an issue that has always upset me. While I respect the religious beliefs of people, I struggle with the idea of children suffering because of convictions they may not have accepted for themselves. I think it is an issue that needs to be discussed more, so that the unheard voices of the children are not ignored. While children cannot make a decision of such great importance at such a young age, we must also acknowledge that children might not be able to accept the faith of their parents for their own as well. I think the government needs to pay attention to this issue and make sure that each case is looked at individually.
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