Teen from faith-healing family dies at Ore. home

A 16-year-old boy has died after refusing medical attention, since his family are members of the Followers of Christ church, who believe in faith healing rather than medicine:



His cousin Ava Worthington died in similar circumstances in March:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=168115&mesg_id=168115

damn these murderous morons.

teens, even 16 yr olds, are not mature enough to make decisions on their own. Our courts know that, our laws understand that, our history shows that. now, a second death in the family based on faith. screw them and their religion.

YOUR BIG INVISIBLE PAL IS NOT A DOCTOR AND HE WILL NOT FUCKING HELP YOU, YOU CRIMINALLY STUPID FUCKHOLES! :grr:

God gives humanity the gift of medicine.

Parable: A drowning man at sea refused multiple offers from passersby in boats, saying God would save him. After he drowned, he asked God why he didn't save him. God replied that he sent him three boats, but he wouldn't get into them. Duh.

I've seen this before - the kid suffers, but the parents take
advantage of scientific advances.

Even here on DU. They'll accuse you of being a "fundamentalist atheist" who wants to kill religious freedom.

but it does have the benefit of cleaning out gene pool.

He was just a kid. At his age, I was still making some pretty dumb decisions: I don't think I could have been trusted to make informed life-or-death decisions about medical treatment, particularly if I'd been subjected to parental and peer pressure to choose magic instead of medicine. Don't forget that many former fundie kids turn sane in their twenties, once they're free of their parents and have experienced more of the world. This boy will never get that chance.

...who were responsible for seeking proper treatment for him. It is not the kid's fault for having such parents.

Now, we'll never know.

F* anyone who claims that.
Your fredom of religion does NOT grant you the right to abuse your children any more than than mine gives me the right to kill every christian I meet without cocequence.

or sixteen, in this case (the law allows it down to fourteen, according to the article)? we don't allow them to choose to drink, smoke, consent to sex, enter into legal contracts... but in some places they can "choose" to die horribly, often unnecessarily, and with absolutely no palliative care, if their fucking religious fucking asshole parents brainwash them into it. at the same time, if an adult has a terminal illness or suffers almost total brain death, they must be kept alive until the bitter end. or beyond. or at least till the money runs out. and won't someone please think of the poor souls trapped in frozen blastocysts? we're tugged between the competing whims of different flavors of religious bullshittery. i can't describe how disgusting i find all this.

i really, really, really hate religious bullshit. oh for a world where magic is kept squarely in the realm of fantasy, where it belongs.

and then... just when you think you can't get more angry... along comes some utterly loony asshole who claims this child created his reality. all in his mind, if only he had thought the right thoughts he would have been well. if only they had prayed the right prayers, had enough "faith." if he knew the fucking Secret. in the end, it's all the same. maybe if they clapped hard enough he'd come back to life.