Oregon jury convicts faith healing parents

Tuesday afternoon an Oregon jury found Timothy and Rebecca Wyland guilty of criminal mistreatment for denying medical care to their baby daughter, Alayna. The couple now faces up to five years in prison.

The jury deliberated a little over an hour, and was unanimous in their verdict.

Authorities filed charges against the Wylands after an abnormal and deforming buildup of blood vessels in the child's left eye was left untreated. The buildup, known as a hemangioma, would have left Alayna blind in the left eye if not untreated.

http://www.examiner.com/humanist-in-portland/oregon-jury-convicts-faith-healing-parents#ixzz1OhAQHaqa


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Why, if we as a society, decide that faith healing is "criminal mistreatment" of a child, do we not also decide that indoctrinating one's child to believe in the supernatural is the same thing? Doesn't the mental development of a child's brain also deserve the same protections?

It should be criminal mistreatment, as you say. Some recover, but many are left with warped perspectives all their lives.

Down that road lies only governmentally or societally acceptable stories, parental education, discussions, even personal information sharing. Yes indoctrination can cause psychological harm but so can horror stories, excessive OR insufficient affection or protectiveness, and so on. Even educating a child "too much" so they are way beyond their age-group can cause psychological harm. I'm not willing to take free speech even from the most religious parents. If we do we will take it from the unusually political, unusually creative, and unusually intelligent ones in the same misguided cause.

Parental rights stop some way short of letting your child become blind because you don't believe in doctors.

However, I don't think that teaching your child to believe in the supernatural is in the same category. I'm a devout atheist myself; but I don't think beliefs of this nature should be subject to the law, or you are essentially punishing people for 'thoughtcrime'. People have a right to believe in the supernatural, even though I have the right to believe they're wrong. And where does it end? What if parents don't teach their child about God, but do teach them to believe in ghosts, or astrology? Should parents be prosecuted for telling their children stories about fairies? For that matter, I would regard it as more harmful to bring children up to be Tories or Republicans than to believe in God/Allah/Zeus, but to punish people for having the wrong political beliefs is the essence of totalitarianism. Freedom means freedom to believe things that I might happen to consider as silly or wrong.

Educating your child about what YOU believe and why is education. Teaching your child to BELIEVE in the supernatural because YOU say so is indoctrination. Do you see the difference?

Parents and teachers can be more authoritarian vs educative in many areas: 'Don't go in the road because a car might run you over' vs 'Don't go out of the gate or I'll smack you'; ''When you call someone a 'fat pig' it hurts their feelings' vs 'Don't you dare talk to me like that or you'll go to bed'; '4 + 12 is the same as 12 + 4 (demonstrates with objects or number line' vs '4 + 12 is 16 just because it is, and you'll fail the test if you don't learn it by heart'; 'I believe that there is a God because XYZ' vs 'Christians are good and everyone else is a heathen'; 'I vote for Democrats because XYZ' vs 'Republicans are monsters and should all be locked up!' In general, the first type of instruction, in each example, is likely to be more educational, and to teach children better habits of thinking. But there can be few people who have *never* resorted to the second type of statement; and while parent and teacher education should encourage the first, I don't see that it can or should be made a matter of law!

children

It's about withholding medical care from them. Do you believe parents have the right to deny medical care to their children? Yes or no?