Apr 30 2008
Kid dead because of extensive parental religious stupidity
I saw this in the Argus yesterday and then in more detail over at Pharyngula. It’s probably the first news story in a fortnight that pissed me off and didn’t involve that sleazebag Hillary Clinton. Some parents in Wisconsin are being charged with second degree manslaughter, because they let their daughter die in a diabetic coma. Her death was easily preventable. Here’s the stupid, outrageous part:
Even as her 11-year-old daughter lay dying on a mattress on the floor of the family dining room on Easter Sunday, Leilani Neumann never wavered in her belief in the power of prayer.
“We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her,” Neumann said, according to a police report. “My husband, Dale, was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor, and I said the Lord’s going to heal her and we continued to pray.”
Prayer didn’t save Madeline Kara Neumann, who died of untreated diabetes March 23.
And now, the law is poised to come down hard on the girl’s parents, Leilani and Dale Neumann, who were both charged with second-degree reckless homicide Monday by Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad.
If convicted, the parents face maximum sentences of 25 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Good. They should rot in jail for this one, and should set an example. Get a load of this:
According to the police report, made available with the charging documents, Dale Neumann said “throughout the interview that he and his family do not need any traditional medical intervention nor do they ‘believe’ in it.”
The document also states: “Neumann said his family never gets sick and if they would, prayer and God would heal them.”
Neumann and his wife are idiots. They don’t “believe” in traditional medical intervention which saves thousands and thousands of lives every day, instead putting the life of their daughter in the hands of the Sky Fairy. They also said that thy thought her symptoms had to do with puberty. Because you know, things like this just typically happen in puberty, no different than zits:
Meanwhile, Leilani Neumann told police that by Saturday, “Kara was laying on the couch. Her legs looked skinny and blue. I didn’t realize how skinny she was. We took her to my bed where I got her warm. I thought it was a spiritual attack. We stayed by her side nonstop and we prayed.
A “spiritual attack”? They have three other kids that they haven’t killed yet, who thankfully have been taken away. Good thing, because there was no “teaching moment” to be had here:
Dale Neumann told investigators that “given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer,” according to the interview statement.
So he’d do it again, and he would not waver in his confidence, even though it didn’t even come close to working the first time and his daughter is dead. Unbelievable. Let’s hope that in addition to jail time, they get some serious deprogramming, too.
UPDATE: Shawn Peters has a look at the legal aspects of this case here (it’s not as open-and-shut as you might think).
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The legal issues in this case, and the similar one that is transpiring in Oregon, are complex, to say the least. If you’re interested, I’m writing about them on my “Religious Convictions” blog, and they’re also covered in my book (from Oxford) WHEN PRAYER FAILS: FAITH HEALING, CHILDREN, AND THE LAW. http://lawandfaith.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the tip. I’ll add a link to it in the post.
I’ll be updating tomorrow with a longer analysis of the law stuff.
Thanks. I’ll be updating tomorrow with a longer analysis of the law stuff. It can get a little abstract sometimes, but the bottom line is that the Neumanns do have a case, purely in terms of the law. (The ethical and moral dimensions of this case might be another matter entirely, of course.)
I totally understand your outrage at this. It is a tragedy and I cannot at all relate to what these parents did. Even though I personally do believe in spiritual attacks that can have physical manifestations, when my 4-year-old couldn’t breathe a week-and-a-half ago, I took him to the doctor right away. (It was asthma and he’s fine.) I would never have sat around and prayed while he suffocated.
At the same time, your remark that the parents should be deprogrammed is pretty scary. Think: warrantless wiretapping scary. As in, it’s not something our government should be in the business of doing. And it is not something a citizen of a free country should advocate.
Then again, I never mistook you for valuing the freedom of religion (or other founding principles, such as property rights or gun rights).
When someone has committed a crime, we rehabilitate them. Often that can also involve sensitizing them to violence, provoking disgust in their actions, etc. These people obviously are not thinking rationally. It’s not enough to just punish them, they need to be fixed of their blatantly erroneous and harmful way of thinking. They are wrong. their beliefs are factually and scientifically false, and harmful.
Quite a stretch when you compare unrestricted surveillance on “possibly” guilty people to rehabilitating guilty ones who have killed their child due to their retarded ‘religious beliefs’. Apples and oranges.
Then again, I never mistook you for valuing the freedom of religion (or other founding principles, such as property rights or gun rights.
Wrong on all three counts. I support freedom of religion, until it harms someone, becomes enshrined in public policy, or is imposed on me.
Gun rights? I own several. I just don’t agree with the extremist position that ‘any kind you want with no limitations’ is the way to go. And I don’t cling to any deluded Alphecca crap that I’m gonna defend myself against the evil guvmint. When they want you they will get you, and it doesn’t matter how many guns you have.
Property rights? Mixed bag. The well being of the environment (a collective right that effects all of us) trumps your right, once again to “do whatever you want” with your land. It’s not all about “you”. The land is a collective resource, not strictly limited by what you have on a piece of paper.
I still don’t understand with your constant, predictable right-wing complaining, never a peep out of you about the money, lives, and immorality of the war, or the corporate welfare that dwarfs the welfare given to living, breathing humans by miles. You’re awful selective,and you seem to be more afraid of the threats to your fairy-tale worldview than the actual real ones that affect all of us.