Behold the Power of Prayer. (11-Year-Old Girl Dead)
For everyone who says there’s no harm presented by those who hold religious beliefs I present this story.
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — The frantic 911 call to the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department from the home of an 11-year-old Weston girl who died from untreated diabetes was made by friends of the girl’s parents, authorities said Thursday.
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Randall and Althea Wormgoor each spoke to a dispatcher as chaos and cries could be heard in the background at Dale and Leilani Neumann’s home in rural Weston on Sunday afternoon, said Capt. Scott Sleeter of the Everest Metro Police Department in Weston.
Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents prayed for her to get better. Her mother, Leilani Neumann, said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.
The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.
The sheriff’s department released tape recordings Thursday of two calls related to the girl’s medical condition.
One was from an aunt in California on the department’s non-emergency line, Lt. Jason Plaza said. She reported the girl was in a coma and needed medical help because the family “believes in faith instead of doctors.”
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In other words, the parents simply sat around doing nothing but making wishes to a spirit they have no proof exists while their daughter got sicker and sicker, then died of a treatable disorder. That’s depraved neglect if I ever heard it, at the very least. But wait–it gets worse.
Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor who was a state Supreme Court justice from 1993-98, said a possible criminal charge in the case could be second-degree reckless homicide, which requires proof of “recklessly causing the death of another human being.” It carries up to 25 years in prison.
But Wisconsin has laws on the books that say a parent cannot be accused of abuse or neglect of a child if in good faith they selected prayer as a basis of treatment for a disease, Geske said.
So apparently the parents are going to get off scott-free for their behavior. How perfectly vile.
Addendum. A comment has arrived. OJ said:
This is the article that enraged and upset me enough to start my own atheist blog. I seriously could not believe my eyes when I read about it. And then, two days later, it happened again to a 15-month old girl with a bacterial infection. Two deaths in one week as a direct result of people who were too stupid to take their daughter to someone who knew anything at all about human health. Disgusting.
Indeed. Of course we’re not supposed to say anything (and they can’t be prosecuted) because it’s their right to let their child die in the name of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. People like them are also allowed to keep people like us from having equal rights because of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. Am I the only one who thinks things are really messed up here?
