In the article “Faith-healing Parents Charged with Murder
for Refusing Kids’ Medical Care – Should They Go to Prison” the author, Billy
Hallowell, writes about Herbert and Catherine Schaible, a couple in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania who put all their trust in God and refused to give their son,
Brandon Schaible the medicine needed to save his life.
Brandon Schaible suffered from pneumonia and did not receive
any medication. His condition got worse to the point where medical attention
was desperately needed. He had diarrhea, breathing issues, and was not eating.
Because his parents did not take him to the doctor and he did not get any
medical treatment, Brandon passed away in April when he was just 8 months old.
Brandon was not the Schaibles’ first child to die from the
refusal of medical care. Their son, Kent Schaibles, passed away in 2009 when he
was two years old for this very exact reason. The Shaibles at this time were
found guilty of “involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment” . They were
told that medical care must be provided to their children and if they deny it
to another one of their children, they could be in prison for at least fourteen
years. They did not follow this order so when Brandon passed away, they were
charged with third-degree murder.
The Schaibles attend the First Century Gospel church in
their city, which are against doctor visits and medicine because trust must be
put in faith rather than in medicine.
Due their religious beliefs, they thought that refusing to
give their children medical attention was justified. The bail was set at
250,000 each and the rest of their seven children were put in foster care.
The question of whether or not putting the Schaibles in jail
due to their religious beliefs is fair and justified is one of major concern
and has created conflicting views and opinions. Although there is freedom of
religion, is there an extent where religious practices should not be allowed?
If so, when should the line be drawn?
In my opinion these parents and the entire religion are wrong. These people are engrossed in their narrow-minded religion, which pretty much condones for an indirect form of homicide. Jana you made a great point by saying that God put doctors and medicine on this earth. I don’t know what their counter-argument is to that but I doubt it’s valid enough to justify the death of two children that could’ve possibly been saved by some anti-biotic.
ReplyDelete-David Palma
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ReplyDeleteI am a very strong advocate of personal religious freedom and all personal freedoms. The keyword in this statement is personal. I am all for these parents not wanting to receive medical treatments for themselves. They have the freedom to choose to obey the rules of any religion that they believe in. However, one thing I despise is when people push their views and beliefs on to other people. It is personal freedom because it is for one and oneself only. I believe that is exactly what happened with these children. These parents pushed their views on to their children who were not even old enough to understand what was going on and make a decision for themselves. I strongly believe that if these children had been older and were mature enough to decide whether to get medical treatment and have a chance of survival over their parent's faith-based methods; they would have chosen the medical treatment in a heart-beat. I think the parents should at least be charged with child neglect for refusing to provide their children with the treatment necessary to survive. Furthermore, I am not opposed to the arrest and incarceration of these parents because I believe they are responsible for their child’s death. I really liked what Jana said about supplementing the treatments with prayer due to the fact that pneumonia is a nasty illness and survival is not guaranteed even with medical assistance. I also really liked what she said about how God put doctors and medicine on this Earth for a reason. Many strong Christians actually believe that doctors are God’s instrument of healing. That gives an exact, religiously-based argument which like David said, "the parents counter-argument cannot be valid enough to justify the untimely death of two innocent children." I also saw an interesting comment on the article where the man stated that he didn’t think the parents were actually engaging in “faith but rather presumption,” saying that they simply thought God would help them because they are heavily involved with their church and not actually actively believing that their child would recover.
ReplyDeleteI fully endorse freedom of religion in the United States, however, the example these two parents set is not something that I would deem to be justified. The parents of the children did not act in the best interest of their infants. As Kyle stated, their religious views were pushed onto the infants, who at the time, were far too young to comprehend anything of that sort. There is a chasm of difference between praying for someone to heal, and relying on a miracle for recovery. These two, unfortunately, went with the latter, and caused the death of two innocent children. Jana does make a good point, and while I don't practice religion, saying that doctors and medicine are God's way of appealing to prayer is much more reasonable than neglecting them in favor of a miracle.
ReplyDeleteI agree that these parents should go to prison to suffer through their lack of action regarding medical care for their two children. Even though they did not think they did anything wrong according to their beliefs, depriving the children from medical care to the point of death is evil and cruel. Although their religion apparently states that trusting medicine over faith is a sin, at what point does the sin of bringing your child to a doctor to get him healthy is overwhelmed by the sin of letting your child die without doing anything to help? If the first child that they tried to cure with prayer of medical attention ended up with death, what made the parents think the second child would not experience the same outcome? Allowing this to happen once is terrible but allowing it to happen twice, I give no sympathy.
ReplyDeleteAs said in previous, religious freedoms are a vital part of how the United States of America was founded and is relevant to this very day. Even with the dissociation with religion in modern day America, we can still assume we need to uphold these freedoms as a matter of keeping liberty alive in the U.S. That being said, there is a line that if crossed, should go punished. With these freedoms comes trade-offs and in order to stay within certain bounds, we have to uphold appropriate action according to said freedoms. When we take religion into example, we cannot claim it as an excuse for manslaughter, in which I think the case presented in the article very well may be. When given religious freedom we have to restrain from extremeties such as disallowing modern medicine in our home. Though in this case, the death wasn't intentional (giving reason to manslaughter and not murder), it is possible to conclude that the line between safe practice, and harmful practice had been crossed.
ReplyDeleteWhenever religion mixes with politics things tend to get messy. First there is the initial issue of whether or not people claiming to follow a certain religion actually believe in all of it’s aspects or are just exploiting it for benefits they might receive socially or politically. Second, there is the issue of whether carrying out tasks guided by the religion are good for the well- being of the community. I find it hard to take a side in this argument because if these people truly believe that using medicine is a sin I don’t find it fair to make them break their religion but at the same time whether or not their children would have made the same decision is debatable. Perhaps provide children with medical attention until they are old enough to make the decisions on whether or not they want to use medicine or not. Another issue that involves religious freedom colliding with the law is the Rastafarian use of marijuana.
ReplyDeleteThe following article discusses a controversy about a 15 year old boy possessing drug paraphernalia and whether or not it is okay because he claims to be Rastafarian.
http://minneapoliscriminallawyer.liberty-lawyer.com/2013/09/24/religious-use-of-marijuana-defense-prevails-in-minnesota-rastafarian-case/
-Brianna Lee Group 3 Context
Religion clashing with the law has been a highly controversial topic for quite some time. This story is almost impossible to take a side on due to the fact that although letting a child die from getting no medical care is wrong, the constitution of the united states gives everyone freedom of religion. Even though i admit that i don't agree with whatever religion agrees with never using doctors , i do agree on everyone having the freedom to have any religion they want. Religion will always clash with law in some way or another, here in the article from the Telegraph, it talks about how Christians must choose between religion and obeying the law. Another instance where these two clash was in the court case between the catholic church and the charity commission where allowing homosexual couples to adopt babies was the topic. This is just another highly debated topic between religion and law.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9088352/Christians-must-choose-between-religion-and-obeying-law-says-equalities-chief-Trevor-Phillips.html
The Schaibles definitely deserve a prison sentence after the crime they committed against their children. The United States was created as a land where people have many freedoms, particularly religious freedoms, and people most certainly have the right to believe whatever they wish to believe. However, this should only be true as long as their beliefs do not: 1) Violate any laws or statutes, and 2) Infringe upon the rights of others. This couple is entitled to their own religious views, however, when their beliefs led to the death of not just one, but two of their children, they are most definitely at fault, and need to be punished accordingly. This wanton disregard of their children's health and safety should not be taken lightly, and after they let their first child die, their rights to be parents should have ended then and there. The government should have stepped in immediately and taken over care of their children, since they are obviously unfit to take care of children due to their dangerous beliefs. Thus it is in everyone's best interest that people like the Schaibles, who endanger their children's lives for some foolish religious doctrine, have their rights to be parents taken away.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the parents indeed should go to jail for the death of their 8 month old son. Although they look to God as their savior and used faith to attempt to save their son, God put the intelligence in humans to create helpful medicines to cure these sicknesses. Although God is not directly curing their child, he is doing it through the help and nurture of other human beings. There would not be vaccines created to do harm or affect a child in a negative way, so why fight them? It is unfortunate that no matter how ill their child got they still watched him suffer knowing that they could simply take him to the pediatrician to fix his illness. I believe that they should receive jail time no matter what, although I do not feel that it should be life. It was not right to do no matter what religion says, they just watched their child die.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely agree with and conform to the rest of the audience’s opinions. The actions committed by the Schaibles parents were not justified or morally correct in any way. Just like Kyle stated, I am also a supporter towards free will, religious freedom, and doing what you please. We are all very blessed to have grown up in such an unrestricted country, free to essentially do as we please to a certain extent. The act done here definitely exceeds that. It is very unfortunate to hear what happened to not only one of their children, but two. When put in a situation like this the young children barely have any say in what they think is right. There was no way these two boys could have stood up for themselves. The Schaibles should have learned a lesson after the death of their first child, but they continued to let it happen to another. The parents earned themselves a spot in prison. As a future doctor myself, I believe the power of medicine is very important in today’s world. Though they have every right to practice their own religion, antibiotics and medicine should have been brought into the situation.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I believe that the decision to put the parents behind bars is justified and was the right thing to do. I am completely okay with the fact that these parents were just trying to put their complete trust in God and believing that having such strong faith would be able to heal their son. However, I think there is a line that can be and was definitely crossed. I believe that there comes a point where religious beliefs should be set aside for life or death situations. All in all, I think that it’s completely unethical for parents to decline their children of medical care, especially in extreme life-saving conditions, despite any religious beliefs. This is just one example of how religious beliefs tend to get in the way of providing necessary medical attention and treatments. The following article discusses another situation in which an 18-month-old infant could possibly go blind because of her parents’ decision to decline any medical treatments due to their religious beliefs.
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-alayna-wyland-blind-religious-parents-refused-medical/story?id=13687650
These parents obviously did not learn from their first experience "letting god heal their child". You would think that if these parents truly valued their children they would not simply watch them die in hopes of a miracle rather than treatment. My question is why these parents were not sent to jail the first time this tragedy occurred.They deserve to spend a long time in prison and definitely do not deserve the privilege of having any more children. The natural instinct to love and protect your own child should overcome beliefs taught to you.
ReplyDeleteComing from a non-religious background, this disturbs me even more that people would sacrifice infants to a god because they don't believe in science and medicine. It is ridiculous for them to only receive probation for killing their 2 year old son. These people should not be given any more second chances.
Medicine was put on this earth to help people in their time of need. Refusing a child medicine that cant even speak for himself so beyond selfish, and without a doubt should be punished somehow. The death of even a single child should be a wake up call in its own. There comes a point where you have to set religion aside and take the essential steps to get your child back to stable health.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/07/wisconsin-case-shows-contrast-in-attitudes-to-parental-denial-of-treatment-based-on-religion-and-based-on-disability/#.Ut9YQYLn99A
This article shows individuals supporting people that condone in medicine refuse to be put in jail for a short period of time.
These parents are a great example of when religion just gets completely out of control. These parents should be charged with the highest charge of murdering their kids because that is basically what they did. I don't care what their beliefs are, letting a child die because of your stupid faith is not right and never has been allowed in the U.S. It is equivalent in craziness to demonic cults because as far as I can tell, in both cases human lives are sacrificed for faith. The freedom of religion excuse can only go so far. Not only that, but forcing a faith on a child who can't even begin to understand what faith is, is also wrong. Faith in my opinion should not be forced on anyone under any circumstance. People and children should have the right to decide for themselves what to believe in.
ReplyDeleteIn our society, conflictions between religion and law are not uncommon, but that does not make religion an acceptable excuse for the death of a child. Regardless of their religious beliefs, the parents of this child acted recklessly and are responsible for the deaths of both children. While the death of their child did not appear to be intentional, it is the second of these fatalities and the prison sentence seems justified. Clearly, the parents are incapable of properly caring for their children and it was right to put them into a foster home. Freedom of religion does not give someone immunity from the law. Neglecting medical care is acceptable when you endanger your own life, but that all changes when you impose it on someone else. A similar article which puts freedom of religion into question, revolves around scientology. In California, a guarded scientology complex nicknamed, "the hole" exists and is very secretive and controversial. It holds many similarities to that of a prison, and there have been several accounts where people have claimed to have been held and tortured in the facility for years. Despite all this, the complex is still in operation and has not been put under investigation. http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/scientology-defectors-describe-violence-humiliation-in-the-hole/1270047
ReplyDelete